Barrel Washer!
If you’ve been following us for the past couple years you’ll know that beets & carrots are two crops we grow A LOT of! In fact, in 2022 we grew around 5000lbs of both carrots and beets. Not to mention potatoes, daikon radish and the other root crops we grow. We realized we needed a faster, less strenuous way to wash root crops. From following other farms like ours on social media we discovered a device called a barrel washer.
We did our research and given that I’m able to turn a wrench and cut a board I decided to go with a DIY kit from a farm out on the east coast. They send you most of the parts and with a quick trip to Home Depot to secure the rest of the lumber and hardware needed I got busy and put it together.
Before I tell you how amazing the barrel washer is, let me describe how we used to wash carrots. First, we soaked the carrots in water for 10-20 minutes. Then, we began manually tumbling the carrots by hand. Turning them over themselves for around 4 minutes. Then we moved them to a second tub and repeated the process two more times. We ended up with pretty clean carrots but it was A LOT of work.
With the barrel washer we simply dump the carrots in one end of the washer. Then we turn on the water and an electric motor that slowly tumbles the carrots. The washer is set at a slight angle so the carrots work their way from the load end of the washer to the opposite end. What we end up with is pretty clean carrots and all we had to do was dump the carrots in one end of the washer!
