Is this FULL TRAY Soil Blocker a Game Changer?

foreign [Music] erds farmer Jesse here so last month we bought two new soil block makers from Swift blocker and in this video we're going to look at whether this style of soil blocker is better than the soil blockers that we have used for many many years now on our commercial Market Garden Farm thing yeah that feels like a pretty accurate description so let's do it [Music] first things first if you're not subscribed to this channel make sure to hit the Subscribe button and if you are subscribed you're awesome like awesome awesome and hey if you appreciate that we do these sorts of in-depth objective breakdowns of new tools and new ideas and new practices you can support our work by picking up a copy of the living soil handbook or a hat or other merch at no-till growers.com you can become a patron at patreon.com no-till Growers or you can just hit that super thanks button if this video was helpful at all that'd be super thanks all right generally speaking in order for a new tool to have relevance it has to address a current problem and the current problem is that though I don't speak for every grower obviously most people would be fully game to use soil blocks if they were more efficient right now excluding the Swift blockers we have a few different options for soil blocking um the handheld blockers which are solid for the backyard Gardener and we do also use them for specific crops or for filling in gaps and Trays then we have the standing blockers which is what Robin's cool it then we have the standing blockers which is mostly what we use on our farm you know one acre in production and then you jump up to the multi-thousand dollar soil blocking machines which are super cool and efficient but wildly outside the budget of a small scale farm so I found the Swift blockers thanks to my buddy Steve Larsen and my interest was peaked if you are not interested in the design or how we found it best to work and use and you were just interested in whether or not it is more efficient skip to this time here for the rest of you nerds let's get into it just to be fully transparent we are not being paid for this video and we did not get these for free and I will tell you when we do get something for free like the 2025 all-electric VW bus I'm just going to sort of will that sponsorship into existence anyway we bought the Swift blocker 72 and the Swift blocker 200. the number just designating how many blocks they make um though they do make a couple smaller blockers as well like a 75 and a 27 block maker they also make a spacer that goes with the 200 so I suppose for people wanting to do a smaller batch of two separate crops on one tray I could see that coming in handy maybe if you wanted to do tomatoes and peppers on one tray or something like that the blockers come in two main pieces with a packet of dibblers the bottom tray is designed to fit nicely into any standard 1020 tray including luckily our deep soil blocking trays that we got from Johnny selected seeds but you could use the shallow ones as well in fact there may be some advantage to using the shallower ones for getting the excess soil out around the sides using the shallow trays instead of the deep ones because it's kind of hard to dig in there with the Deep ones though that's not the biggest deal in the world uh it does cost a little time in cleaning that out the top tray comes with holes for the dibblers to be punched in and the lovely Swift blocker logo on the top it's a nice touch I gotta say before you can really use the blockers you need to insert the dibblers for the 200 blocker it took me about 30 minutes and my fingers hurt a little bit afterward But ultimately you only have to do that one time or at least one time for all of them the dibblers will and do fall out sometimes just like any soil blocker but Swift blocker sends extra for that then as long as you have your trays and some soil mix you're good to go some obligatory notes here that we have learned in our initial blocking trials is that just like with any soil blocker the soil mix still needs to be very very damp to work successfully it doesn't need to be soupy like a soupy slurry but it needs to be quite wet this is the biggest mistake I see people making with soil blocking your mix is just too dry if it's not working they're crumbling it's just too dry it shouldn't gloop out of your hands but you should be able to squeeze the substantial amount of water out of it when you squeeze it also the mix should be pretty well sifted I think of our mix our mix come sifted and I think of our mix that we get from tilt soil is pretty well sifted in general and it does work fine but the tiny rocks and twigs that I've never noticed before do get caught a little bit between the top and the bottom of the blocker especially in the Swift blocker 200 the Swift blocker 72 is a little bit more forgiving as the cells are slightly bigger it's not a big deal but we realize pretty quickly why the Swift why Swift blocker sells a scraper as well that you have to scrape the excess mix off the top interestingly that scraper they sell also has holes in it that can double as a seed plate which is cool the creators of Swift blocker are notably flower Farmers so they've designed these tools from that Vantage and from the Vantage of farmers so that's a plus and it's also just a husband and wife with a three-year-old kid working out of their kitchen which I appreciate because I feel like that's not only my farm but like 90 percent of the Farms that I know anyway uh the top part will not press the blocks out of it if it hits a rock or a twig so we just use a bench scrape to sort of scrape that excess soil mix off the top you know so this is what our system looks like and we're still in the early stages of developing said system but basically the approach we've found to be most successful is that we wet the soil mix as I described load the bottom tray into the 1020 mesh tray I will link all of this in the show notes then instead of trying to press the mix into every cell I run bench scrape backwards over top pressing the mix into the holes as best I can and then I scrape the excess off the top until the top grid is clean of any debris I also scrape out the sides while the bottom part is in there so it doesn't just leave like an awkward strip of soil on the side then I place the top of the Swift Blocker on and work both sides going back and forth pulling up with my fingers and pushing down at the same time that was a really helpful tip that I got from Swift blocker you will feel pretty quickly if there's a snag at this point and just take the top off and find it and then scrape it off when I get to the end when the top and the bottom kind of meet on the sides I tap the top just to kind of make sure that those last few blocks pop out again there is a bit of a learning curve here it took us a few tries to get it right and it will take some practice for you so I recommend doing a round then restarting a few times just to get the hang of it solo blocking in general has a little bit of a learning curve so just expect one with this as well in terms of Time Savings I didn't have a perfect comparison because I don't have another blocker that puts down 200 or 72 blocks in a single tray my hand blocker that is comparable to the 72 puts down 50 blocks and my standing blocker that is comparable to the 200 puts down 105 I think people really love these videos most when I just start saying numbers so the only way to compare them time wise is by seconds per block and though I think I will improve on these with practice I did see a noticeable difference in the amount of time it took versus the standing blocker and the Hand blocker for the standing blocker I can do 105 blocks in about 40 seconds that's 0.38 seconds per block for the Swift blocker 200 it took me 73 seconds consistently to do a tray so that means 0.36 seconds per block that's a savings of 0.02 seconds per block but also a space efficiency Savings of 95 blocks per tray and there are other savings but the Swift blocker 72 it was about 1.01 blocks per second a 72 block tray and one minute 13 seconds and for the comparable 2-inch hand blocker from Johnny's about 1.8 seconds per block or a 50 block tray in 90 seconds so you may say well that's a decent time savings on the Swift blocker 72 but not a huge Time Savings on the Swift blocker 200 and technically you're right obviously we make over 1 000 blocks per week so for us a few tenths of a second will add up a little bit but not a ton so is there an advantage um honestly I kind of believe yes the space savings is really nice and it's also worth noting how much more energy it takes to slam that standing blocker down several times to get those 105 blocks yeah versus just filling the you know a single tray and pressing it out for for the 200 blocker ditto with the hand blockers which have given me more than my fair share of blisters over the years also a very important difference between these two types of blockers is uniformity and not just for plant growth but the one thing that soil blocks really struggle with is being uniform at least uniform enough to use any sort of drop seeder unless you really take your time thus tanking anytime savings found with the standing blocker or the hand blocker the blocks are going to be a little too wonky to use a fast drop cedar or almost all seating must be done by hand I've seen people use drop seeders with soil blocks to be sure but it requires more time spent making the actual blocks thus increasing the seconds per block anyway as I see it the Swift blocker opens up soil blocking to the possibility of a very fast drop Cedar plus soil blocking combo now I have not trialled any drop Cedars yet that that are on the market with the Swift blocker yet nor have I tried to build one but the potential is definitely there and that's very cool because seating is super time consuming for us and I should note that Swift blocker told me that they are working on a full tray Cedar system Beyond just that little scrape plus some other stuff that I can't mention yet it's also very cool so overall I love the design I like that there is some amount of time savings there and I think the potential is huge when coupled with a drop seeder because then the time savings like expands to finish out some potential improvements I'd personally love to see a tiny lip on the side of the block for the excess soil mix might be nice that could save a few seconds per tray if I were Swift blocker I would maybe offer a deep dibbler option because the Dibbles are a little shallow for my liking depending on the crop and I'd like maybe if the dibblers could lock in a little better but that goes for all soil blockers the dibblers fall off of every soil blocker I've ever tried so it would be nice installing those dibblers is the hardest part of the process but not a big deal and definitely not a deal breaker by any means a good podcast episode we'll get you through it might I recommend one from The no-till Growers family no I'm actually recommending that to you that I trust them they already know obviously as mentioned love to see a drop seeder also maybe offer some extra bottom plates would be cool Max vanderbrook of Harpeth Moon farm in Tennessee has been using the Swift blocker and that's the one thing they wish they had was someone could be loading the bottom trays and another person could be pushing them out so basically you'd fill up a bottom a bunch of bottom trays and then just have somebody go through and press them all out and then the next person could start filling the rest of those bottom trays which is a cool idea I like that Max that would really speed up the efficiency I would personally love a swift blocker 128 option for sure I like the Swift blocker 200 as a product but I just don't use a ton of 200 sell anything because the flexibility is just not there um in the greenhouse like they don't hold as long sometimes I need an extra week in either direction and I'm not sure I'll get that from the small 200 blocks plants can outgrow small blocks very quickly so for me I would like to have a 128 option at some point still not out there I do also like having a 200 option now that maybe it opens up new things that I could try maybe that'll make me more efficient and have a better crop plan instead of just like having stuff chilling in my Greenhouse that's probably not the best Habit to have but the 200 is really nice for space savings and we are currently trialing them against our typical 105 trays to see how they do I haven't said anything about price and they are the Swift blockers a little bit more expensive than the standing blocker by at present like 70 or 80 dollars but you are getting more blocks per pressing so I don't exactly know how to look at that like it's 295 dollars for 35 blocks or 345 dollars for 200 hard to compare those accurately longevity wise I have no reason to believe the Swift blockers won't hold up as well as the hand blockers which by the looks of them I bought back in the Mesozoic ditto for the longevity of the dibblers we all we lost one already which is typical for any blocker but I don't have any reason to believe they won't last um will they fall out with more easily with these with the Swift blockers than the hand blockers and the standing blockers I don't know um time will tell while I'm on the subject of longevity though one pro tip with all stainless steel tools and soil blockers is that you really have to wash them thoroughly after every use or they will Rust not great it makes it much harder to punch stuff out when they're Rusty just protect your investment with some refreshment yes I did come up with that myself well that doesn't sound like a compliment but I am glad you can tell will someone come out with a better design in the near future I guess that's possible but I honestly imagine it would be hard to improve upon this for the 10 20 tray size I don't know what else you could really do with that size um except for maybe like a small scale soil blocking machine anyway I really like the two Swift blockers that I tried very well made and they work great for now I'm not ditching my staining blocker just yet but I do think the 72 will replace my hand blocker as well as my 72 wind strips and I like that the Swift blocker 200 is going to give me more seed starting options in general I could absolutely see Swift blockers entirely overtaking our 35 block standing blocker especially if there's ever a 128 option in the future if you've ever tried the Swift blocker or you have thoughts or questions let us know in the comments section I we'll also link all of this stuff in the show notes otherwise like this video If you like this video subscribe to the channel if you appreciate this sort of in-depth objective tool breakdown or support it with a super thanks or by being a patron at patreon.com Growers you can also buy a book or a hat that's an easy way to support us at no togros.com anyway that's it from me thanks for watching we'll see you later bye foreign [Music]

Channel: No-Till Growers

Views: 60,757

Keywords: soil block, soil blocker, small scale, agriculture, regenerative, no till, greenhouse, plant starts, propegation, healthy, soil, living, no excavar, no labrar, jardinería, mantillo de jardín, mantillo, hojas, astillas de madera, mantillo de papel, mantillos vivos, sem cavar, sem lavrar, jardinagem, mulch de jardim, mulch, folhas, lascas de madeira, mulch de papel, mulch vivo, DubbedWithAloud, 2025, vw electric bus, vwbus, Volkswagen bus

Id: lHQ-SZU2WrQ

Length: 26min 59sec (1619 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 23 2023