Equipment Designs

Implements

Garden Cart Designed and built by Tim Zander of Emerald Meadows Farm, this welded cart is adaptable to be moved by hand, bike, or tractor. Parts list.

Tractor-Drawn Sprayer This tractor-drawn sprayer vastly reduces the time required to spray vegetables compared to a backpack sprayer.

Infrastructure

Building a Low Cost Packshed & Cooler This document outlines the design and construction of a low-cost packshed and cooler for diversified vegetable growers, based on a series of workshops hosted by The CSA Coalition and The Gene Farley Center for Peace, Justice, and Sustainability in May 2011.

Walk-in Cooler Design A University of Kentucky publication detailing how to construct a well-insulated walk-in cooler. A parts list is also available.

Cooler Design Considerations From the inventor of the Coolbot, this is a brief, but extremely helpful design guide for building your own walk-in cooler. It discusses insulation types, sheathing, flooring, siting, and more, all with the CSA vegetable grower in mind.

USDA Portacooler An older design for a portable cooler, but extremely useful and even easier nowadays with a Coolbot and rigid foam insulation instead of manually rewiring an A/C and using less-effective polyurethane.

Electric G Conversion
From Ron Khosla, inventor of the Coolbot, complete parts lists and instructions for converting a G to run on batteries alone – no gasoline needed.

Online Resources

Spring Rose Growers Coop Youtube Channel
Hmong and Spanish language videos about organic soil mix, building a low cost cooler, and building a low cost hoop house.

Farm Hack
FarmHack is a resource for farmers who embrace the long-standing farm traditions of tinkering, inventing, fabricating, tweaking, and fixing things that they broke. Open to farmers of all ages, it has special relevance for young and beginning farmers, who may want to learn from their peers’ and their elders’ successes, mistakes and new ideas. Currently FarmHack is set up as a blog for farm inventions – submit yours to farmhack [at] youngfarmers[dot]org.

Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Since 1988, the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program has helped advance farming systems that are profitable, environmentally sound and good for communities through a nationwide research and education grants program.

Farm Fresh Atlas A listing of farms that sell local food in southern Wisconsin.

Books & Printed Resources

• Sharing The Harvest, A Citizens Guide to Community Supported Agriculture. Elizabeth Henderson and Robyn Van En. 2007
• The New Seed Starters Handbook. Nancy Bubel. 1988
• Root Cellaring. Mike and Nancy Bubel. 1979
• Keeping Food Fresh. The Gardeners and Farmers of Terre Vivante. 1999
• Farmers of Forty Centuries. F.H. King. 1911
• How to Build Your Own Greenhouse: Design and Plans to Meet Your Growing Needs. Roger Marshall.

Cookbooks

• From Asparagus to Zucchini: A Guide to Cooking Farm‐Fresh Seasonal Produce. Third Edition. Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition. 2004
• Rolling Prairie Cookbook. Nancy O’Connor. 1998
• Farmer John’s Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables. John Peterson. 2006
• Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America’s Farmer’s Markets. Deborah Madison. 2002
• Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini. Elizabeth Schneider. 2001
• On Food and Cooking. Harold McGee. 2004
• Lulu’s Provencal Table. Richard Olney. 1994
• Cooking By Hand. Paul Bertolli. 2003
• Nourishing Traditions. Sally Fallon. 2006
• The Victory Garden Cookbook. Marian, Morash. 2010
• Pig Perfect. Peter Kaminsky. 2005
• The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating. Fergus Henderson. 2004
• Chez Panisse Fruit. Alice Waters. 2002
• Chez Panisse Vegetables. Alice Waters. 1996
• Wild Fermentation. Sandor Ellix Katz. 2003