THE STORY OF SowEZ
The SowEZ seeder was inspired by our trusty, human powered garden seeder. We plant a lot of seeds on our small organic farm in Oregon's Willamette Valley and wondered if a scaled down, handheld version of the garden seeder, without the wheels, but with the seed disc, could be devised. After some head scratching and some serious doodling, a handheld seeder with a trigger actuated seed disc, and an onboard hopper, began to come into focus.
Because the seed disc was to be trigger actuated, the disc would oscillate, rather than rotating continuously in one direction like that of the garden seeder. This meant there could be more than one seed cup on the seed disc thereby eliminating the need to change seed discs. The seed cups would be changed by rotating the seed disc using a knob molded into the seed disc. This would cause the gear teeth on the seed disc to temporarily displace those on the trigger until a different seed cup was in position.
Over the course of around two years, and around ten prototypes, the seeder evolved into its final incarnation in which there are four seed cups. The smallest seed cup is dedicated to the Brassicas with their tiny, uncooperative seeds. The three larger seed cups are designed to accommodate the three available sizes of pelleted seeds. Pelleted seeds are easier to plant than their unclad bretheren but are even easier with the SowEZ seeder. And the resulting size-spacing of the seed cups makes the SowEZ Seeder amenable to planting a variety of small to medium unpelleted seeds as well.
The development of the SowEZ Seeder was greatly benefitted by the expertise of Jeff Miller. Jeff is a Mechanical Engineer with over 20 years expertise in the plastics industry. He did the CAD work and took charge of the mold building. Our prototypes were made by Ryan Thomson at Dependable Pattern Works in Portland OR. The SowEZ Seeder is manufactured at 3D plastics, Inc., in Newberg OR.
Our multi-talented friends Anton and Naomi Belov helped get the website off the ground.
Thanks to all!
Earl Weber & Sandra Petersen, Hoot Owl Farm, Sherwood Oregon, December 2014
Acknowledgements
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