The best garden equipment purchase I ever made:
Compost grinder.
The historical progression.
Back in 1962, My late father, Forrest Bailey Johns, a master gardener, retired from Shell Oil Company, and moved from Decatur, Illinois to Poplar Bluff, Missouri (His home state) and set up a serious garden. He had fruit trees, raspberries, logan berries, flowers, and his true love, tomatoes, in great quantitiy. One of the first equipment purchases he made was a WW Grinder. In those days, (almost 50 years ago) there were really no other substantial equipment alternatives available for the purpose of grinding compost.
A hobby gardener myself, and always in competition with my dad for the best tasting tomato, I purchased my WW Grinder in 1972. (The best picture I can find:
). I used that grinder for years, but it would not chip logs and had trouble handling wet product. Around 1993, I bought a "commercial" chipper grinder from Norther Hydraulics. I completely wore it out in about 5 years. Finally, in 1999, I bought a McKissic Mighty Mac 10 hp chipper/shredder. The cost was $1,350. I will say this: This shredder/chipper is good. It is the best I have ever used. It will easily chip up to 3 1/5 inch logs and rarely clogs, even with green material. One thing I would caution about. There were two oil fill plugs. I only noticed one. Last summer, while using the chipper, the "hidden" oil filler cap popped off and resulted in a blow out of oil and the destruction of the engine.
I replaced the engine with an 11 hp Briggs (Cost only $374), which is a physically much larger engine, and required me to do a little mechanical engineering to make it fit. BTW, this 11 HP engine ROCKS! While the original engine, a 10hp Briggs, was entirely sufficent, and would have lasted many years longer had I paid attention to the oil filler caps (Both of them) this new engine has HUGE power and I expect this will be the last chipper grinder I will ever need. If you are looking for a chipper grinder to last the rest of your life, look at it here
http://www.mackissic.com/consumer/csconsumer/chipper_shredder_consumer1.htm [The one on the right] I note that the new models come with an 11 hp engine.
One last Caveat: Chipper/grinders are violent machines and can cause serious or fatal injuries. Be Careful! Also wear hearing protection, leather gloves and eye protection while operating.
