Kiwi programmer and farmer John Hart of Lifeboat Farm has been experimenting with using his RepRap to produce mechanical pest control devices so he can leave off the chemical pesticides. Shown above, fused-filament butterfly decoys, spotted with a marker and mounted on stalks of plastic filament in the garden: The stalks are quite flexible so […]
One crisp Autumn afternoon, I had the privilege of joining MAKE General Manager Dale Dougherty as he used his wooden apple press to make cider from the apples that grow on his property. Dale has been making cider for over 20 years, and since this was only my second time making it, he was kind enough to share his technique with me as we worked together.
The 58 year-old public school teacher has a dozen chickens and ten beehives that belong to a neighborhood “honey co-op.” He has about an acre of fruit trees and veggies growing on ten vacant lots behind his house. The day I came by, his working 1960 Ford tractor was parked a few paces away from a huge pungent patch of basil. Weertz’s sister was about to go pick peaches. The slim urban farmer walked over to his tractor and looked at a gauge that reported more than 2,000 hours of use since Weertz bought it 20 years ago.
