Kitchen Garden Forum

My favourite tool would be a hoe, closely followed by a pair of secateurs.

Johnboy

Interesting you should say that. The spud forks we have, on reflection and a revisit to that link, are slightly different. The tines of the fork on
ours are far closer together, about 3cm or so.

They were not used to lift the spuds from the ground, that was left to something like this:



This one is a bit more fancy but the same principle applies with a blade running under the rows, 2 at a time, lifting the spuds that then run over the bar belt to get rid of the soil....and most of the stones, and then deposited behind for picking into large boxes ready for grading back at the sheds.

The spuds were stored under straw until such time as we sold them and then they were put through the riddle to grade them and remove the rest of the stones prior to bagging.

The round tipped tines made it easy to slide the fork into the pile of spuds, along the floor, and not spike any. A quick shake of the fork got rid of the small tubers and some of the stones, reducing the time in the riddle. I used to spend hours forking them into the riddle for a penny per bag!!!

Happy days!

Jerry

Thanks everyone, I have neither a Mattock nor a spud fork - I'll have to add them to my list

Old H.., I shall think of you every time I stab a spud whilst lifting/digging!

Hi Jerry,
Very familiar with that machine and the really old
spinner type. I do not know if you are familiar with modern spud lifters.They are a least 6 times larger than that in the picture and the ground is destoned prior to planting and it works similarly in that it lifts two rows at a time, removes the soil, and then shoots them into a trailer being driven alongside the lifter. This is only possible because of the abscence of the B---dy stones. The Potato Contractors will lift and transport 60 acres in about 36 hours or sooner! A tad faster than the lifter in the picture.
I take it that your Potato forks are for handling rather that lifting by running the tines along the ground to get under the pile.

while digging my spuds out a couple of years ago I got a shock as one of the spuds stuck on my fork looked black but then started to wriggle , It was the mole I had been hunting all summer.

Hi Arthur.


"BINGO"!!!!

Johnboy

Yes modern kit is very much different to what I started out on. After I finished my Agricultural degree I worked in Africa and the States on large scale units, the Kenyan outfit was based around an 80,000 acre farm near Mount Kenya and the US operation was spread over Georgia and Florida and ran to just over 200,000 acres.

Big farms meant big kit. From a farmers son used to kit designed for a 400 acre mixed Devon farm and used to tractors like Massey 135 it was a bit of a shock to get into the cab of a massive John Deere pulling a 16 furrow plough!

When I came back to the UK I spent a year as a Demo driver for Claas Machinery taking combines, forage harvesters, etc all over the country.

Funny enough the last tractor I drove, back in January, on the farm was one of these:



Pulling a parsnip harvester.

Very comfy compared to a old open massey with a tin seat!!

Jerry