Tater + onion dispenser system

So here's the situation.  It is fall. The harvest rolls in.  Now you've got a whole pile of potatoes and onions.  What do you do with them all winter?  You could use some bags or crates, but that tends to get dirt everywhere, always be in the way, and makes hard to get a few out when dinner calls.

Here's the design I came up with to solve that problem.  It consists of a large, divided crate capable of handling several hundred pounds of ground-grown goodness.  But unlike a crate there's a hopper on the bottom so you can easily just grab a few and since it's a FIFO (first in, first out) arrangement, you use up your oldest food first to help prevent spoilage.

I think what I came up with is an elegant and easily constructed solution to these problems.
(Even if I do say so mesself...)

Enough teaser. Let's get started!

Step 1: What you need

Materials:
* 6 2x2's
* lots of lattice slats - you know, that stuff the hardware store sells for around the bottom of decks and gazebos.  I cut my own down from 2x4's because I didn't want to run into town.  Not really worth it.  Just buy the slats.
* lots of 1 inch brads
* a few grabber screws
* some OSB chip-board

Tools:
* a saw of some kind
* screwdriver, drill, and optionally a countersink for the screws
* a 16ga brad nailer or stapler - yeah, I know, usually I try and write these instructables so that you can get by without special tools.  This time, however, you really need something that can lay down some nails fast and easy or you'll go crazy.

Time:
* It may seem hard to believe, but a reasonably competent person could knock one of these out in an evening after work!  (Took me two.)

Comments

[zygomatic]

Cool idea, but I've always heard that storing onions and potatoes together makes them both go bad faster.

[dbrooks1]

You could also make a slant so that the potatoes are about 1-2 width on bottom and more and more width as you go up. This could also prove as an easy way to catch the dirt that falls out, as it would fall into the somewhat large area beneath the slant. (provided your slant wasn't solid, of course.)

[k-twizel]

full to the top: 48"x24"x16"= 18,432 cubic inches which converts to aprox. 9 US Bushels of Onions and 48"x24"x28"= 32,256 cubic inches converts to aprox 15 US Bushels of potatoes :-) not sure I could eat that much but I could give some away

[PS118]

Yeah! Thanks for the hint!

With a little googling I found:
http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/scales/bushels.html

So combined with your measurements that works out to:
750 pounds (340kg) of potatoes (going off 50lbs/bushel)
513 pounds (233kg) of onions

Hmmm... Is that right? That seems like a lot more than it looks. Oh well. :}

[k-twizel]

That does seem a bit high to me too... will your rig support that much weight? I reran the numbers using: http://convert-to.com/conversion/volume/convert-in3-to-bu-us.html and get 8.6 bu Onions and 15.0 bu of Potatoes and at 50 lbs/bushel (lots of moisture makes heavy) your calcs are good.

The slope at the bottom of your rig may reduce the overall volume but not by much.

Thanks for the opportunity to do math in public :)

[poofrabbit]

Congratulations on being a finalist in the be prepare contest!

[cswpil]

part 2 other than that is a very nice set up and I am gonna build one for our taters
Thanks

[cswpil]

besides the FIFO issue for some reason when you place onions and potatoes next to each other they tend to sprout faster than if the are separated by more distance. that's why the old potato/onion bends people use to use were only about a weeks work of both in size

[bcavaciuti]

its a brilliant idea but maybe it would benefit from an opaque covering because potatoes start to germinate when in sunlight and also to make sure it really is FIFO you could make the bottom tilt towards the front then the ones at the back would fall down ...maybe that would work :D good idea

[Julianne fights Dragons!]

Don't they get bruised or weirdo mold growing on them? Or is that just the store bought ones because those have been sitting around for a while since they were harvested?

[PS118]

BTW, somebody pointed out that this might not be a perfect FIFO system. Since the potatoes are always taken from the front, and the ones above want to fall straight down, then those in the back corner may not cycle through. I'm not sure if that's going to happen in practice or not, but certainly something to keep an eye on!

[Jobar007]

Make a baffle to push them back first and that would fix that problem.

[PS118]

I'll keep an eye out for a few months, but if I start having problems I may jsut take that advice. Thanks!

[Jobar007]

Would the slats be strong enough? The price for store bought slats would probably double the price of this project... Unless you don't have a way to accurately cut the slats out or the time to do so. Personally, my time is worthless (::grin::) so if you are like me, the benefit wouldn't outweigh the cost.

It looks like you ripped the 2X4 into half inch thick sections for your slats. Is that accurate?

[PS118]

Pretty much. I already had some some cut down to 1x2 from another project. (Those I ALWAYS rip down myself. You just can't find a decently straight one in the store!) So I just ripped those in half.

Would take some time to go all the way down, but hey, whichever way you want to go, right? ;)

[jessyratfink]

This is genius. And I wish I had that many onions and potatoes. :D

[AussieAnglerGal]

very clever!