BIGSLIDER™ Heavy Duty Tray Field Test

Ever since we first designed the Professional model, people have been asking about putting edges on it. Since this defeats the purpose of tilting only 1/16 inch to move your load, we couldn’t change the shape of the sheet.

But we are happy to report a new addition to the BigSlider line: the Heavy Duty Tray. We received some last week (April 2009) and had a chance to field test it this weekend with more tree planting projects. We were thrilled with the results!

We started by moving two 40 lb bags of landscape soil mix on YardPal (shown left on the ground next to the CreteSheet), and placed our CreteSheet on the Heavy Duty Tray (at right). Tip used the shovel to break up the peat moss clumps.

Next Tip opened the soil bags with the sharp point of the French trowel (one of My Favorite Tools) and emptied them out.

As in the Italian Pines project, we used CreteSheet to quickly mix about equal parts moss and 80 lbs soil. We discovered that the edges on the Tray actually impeded our ability to roll the mixture around, so we slid it off Tray on to the ground. Look at how beautifully mixed it is!

Next we needed to move different soil from a dirt pile to plant the new dogwoods plus a potted, rooted Japanese maple…I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s ever had a potted plant grow roots in the ground!

Now the Heavy Duty Tray really proved its worth. We started with a very large mound of soil. And the flat shovel moved effortlessly along the Tray as Tip scooped the soil out.

Tip was quickly able to move the remaining dirt from the back yard to the Japanese maple in the east garden. You can see we have a Professional model inside the 33 gal leaf bag on the right (in front of Tip, kind of hard to see, but take my word for it!), and the Tray worked great for moving soil over our (currently) uneven stone walkway in the east garden – with no spillage.

In the foreground (of the picture below on the right) we used our very first prototype for the Professional model (in constant use since 2005) to receive the gumbo soil, and gently extracted the roots from the soil and pot. We used tin snips to cut the pot away to keep the roots from tearing.

Tip dug a hole two times the diameter of the pot and two times the depth of the soil in the pot. He refilled the hole with soil from the Tray, and I shaped it into a cone. We arranged the roots splayed over the cone, carefully making sure no roots were growing in a circle around the tree, and covered them with more soil.

Finally Tip was able to funnel the last of the soil from the Tray.

At the end, the gumbo mound was high, and we didn’t want to lose any of it hauling it to the back yard. We left the gumbo on the white sheet, easily slid it over on to the Tray, hauled it all to the top of the old dirt pile, and flipped it over (along the short axis) to quickly empty it.

Another gardening project completed with the help of BigSlider utility movers – YardPal, Professional model, and now…the Heavy Duty Tray!

We also have quick view of just the pictures showing us using the Heavy Duty Tray and the other tools for the operation.