6 Best Everlast Powerpro 165E For Market Gardens That Prevent Common Issues

Every market gardener knows the frustration of a tool breaking mid-task or a trellis collapsing under the weight of a bumper crop. These aren’t just annoyances; they are recurring problems that cost time, money, and morale. The solution isn’t always buying a better version of the same failing product, but creating a permanent fix yourself.

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Everlast 165E: The Ultimate Farm Fabrication Tool

The Everlast Powerpro 165E isn’t just another tool; it’s a small-scale fabrication shop in a single box. It combines three essential functions: a TIG welder for precise work on steel and stainless, a stick welder for thick, dirty metal repairs, and a plasma cutter for slicing through steel with ease. This multi-process capability means you have the right tool for nearly any metalworking job the farm throws at you.

This versatility is its greatest strength. Instead of needing separate, bulky machines for welding and cutting, you get everything in one portable, inverter-based unit. It runs on both 110V and 220V power, making it adaptable to any workshop, garage, or barn outlet. For a market garden where space and budget are always tight, this consolidation is a massive advantage.

Think of it as the key to farm self-sufficiency. When a piece of equipment breaks, you’re no longer at the mercy of a repair shop’s schedule or the cost of replacement parts. You have the power to fix, modify, and create solutions on your own timeline. This machine bridges the gap between making do and making it better.

Custom Steel Trellis: End Collapsing Cage Issues

Those flimsy, cone-shaped tomato cages from the big box store are a recurring joke. They’re barely adequate for a determinate bush tomato, let alone a sprawling indeterminate variety loaded with fruit. The inevitable result is a tangled mess of plants collapsing onto the ground, inviting disease and pests.

With a welder, you can build a trellis that will outlast the gardener. Using inexpensive materials like concrete rebar or electrical conduit, you can fabricate incredibly strong, permanent structures tailored to your crops. Imagine a ten-foot-long, six-foot-high grid of welded rebar for your tomatoes or a perfectly arched trellis for vining squash that will never sag.

This is a "build it once" project. A welded steel trellis withstands wind, weather, and the heaviest crop loads imaginable. While the initial time investment is higher than setting out store-bought cages, the long-term payoff is enormous. You eliminate a yearly chore and a common point of failure in the garden.

Welded Pest Fencing: A Permanent Garden Barrier

Pest pressure is a constant battle, and standard defenses often fail. Rabbits chew through plastic netting, groundhogs dig under chicken wire, and deer can easily push over flimsy T-posts. A breach in your defenses can wipe out weeks of hard work overnight.

A welder allows you to construct a truly permanent barrier. By welding heavy-gauge hardware cloth or welded wire fencing directly to steel T-posts or angle iron frames, you create a rigid, impenetrable wall. There are no loose sections for animals to push through and the steel mesh is impossible to chew. For burrowing pests, you can weld a lower skirt to the fence that gets buried a foot deep, stopping them cold.

This approach moves you from a defensive, reactive posture to a proactive, secure one. You can build modular panels for areas that need access or create a solid perimeter around the entire garden. A welded fence is a statement that your crops are off-limits, providing peace of mind that temporary fencing never can.

Reinforced Hand Tools: Stop Buying Replacements

You know the feeling: you put your weight on a shovel to pry up a stubborn rock, and you hear the dreaded crack of the wooden handle splintering at the socket. Quality hand tools are expensive, and cheap ones are a liability. The cycle of breaking and replacing tools is a hidden cost of farming.

A small welder changes your relationship with your tools from consumer to owner. That cracked shovel socket can be welded shut, making it stronger than it was new. A bent tine on a pitchfork can be straightened and reinforced with a small bead of weld. You can even add a steel gusset to the neck of a favorite hoe to prevent it from ever bending again.

This isn’t just about repair; it’s about reinforcement. You are actively improving your tools, customizing them for the hard work they need to do. A five-minute welding job can save you a $40 trip to the hardware store and keep a perfectly good tool out of the landfill.

Fabricated Wash Station: Streamline Harvest Day

Harvest day often ends with a bottleneck at the wash station—or more likely, at a series of buckets and a hose on the ground. This is inefficient, messy, and hard on your back. A disorganized washing process slows down your entire workflow from field to cooler.

The Everlast 165E lets you build a wash station worthy of a professional operation. Using angle iron or square steel tubing, you can fabricate a frame at a comfortable working height. This frame can be designed to perfectly fit your harvest totes, with dedicated sections for initial rinsing, dunking, and draining.

Imagine a station with a built-in mount for a spray nozzle and a sloped, perforated steel top that lets dirt and water fall away. This isn’t an extravagance; it’s a critical piece of infrastructure. A well-designed wash station saves immense time and physical strain, making the entire harvest process smoother and more professional.

Steel Cold Frame Hoops: Defy Wind and Heavy Snow

Season extension with low tunnels and cold frames is a key strategy for market gardeners, but it comes with risks. PVC hoops can shatter in the cold or flatten under a heavy, wet snow. A collapsed tunnel means a lost crop and a major setback.

Welding your own hoops from steel provides absolute security. You can bend and weld half-inch electrical conduit or even rebar into a Gothic arch shape that sheds snow effectively. For wider tunnels, you can easily weld in a center purlin or cross-bracing to create a structure that will stand up to high winds and the heaviest snow load.

This is about mitigating risk. When you invest time and resources into growing winter greens or starting spring crops early, you need to trust your infrastructure. Welded steel hoops provide the confidence that your structures will survive the worst of the weather, protecting your investment and your harvest.

Modified Harvest Cart: Haul More with Less Effort

A standard garden cart or wheelbarrow is a general-purpose tool, but it’s rarely perfect for harvesting. Totes slide around, the wheels are too small for muddy paths, and you can only carry one or two containers at a time, leading to multiple trips back and forth.

With a welder, you can transform a basic cart into a specialized, high-efficiency harvest vehicle.

• Weld on custom dividers or racks to securely hold multiple harvest totes.
• Cut off the old axle and weld on a wider one to accommodate larger, more stable pneumatic tires that float over soft ground.
• Add a tool holder for your harvest knife and a hook for buckets.

These modifications are simple but have a profound impact on your workflow. A cart that can carry four or five totes at once cuts your travel time by 75% or more. Over the course of a long harvest day, that saved time and energy is invaluable. It is a perfect example of adapting a tool to fit your specific system.

Plasma Cutter Function: For Precision Farm Repairs

While welding joins metal, the plasma cutter function on the 165E separates it with incredible speed and precision. Using an angle grinder to cut thick steel is slow, loud, and often inaccurate. A plasma cutter uses compressed air and an electric arc to slice through metal like a hot knife through butter, leaving a clean, ready-to-weld edge.

This capability opens up a new world of repair and fabrication. Need to cut a perfectly round hole in a steel plate to make a flange? Easy. Need to remove a complex, rusted-out section of a mower deck to weld in a new patch? The plasma cutter makes it a clean, simple job. It allows you to create custom brackets, gussets, and parts from raw steel plate.

The plasma cutter is the difference between simply sticking things together and truly fabricating. It gives you the ability to shape metal to solve a problem, not just patch it. For any market gardener looking to build and maintain their own equipment, the precision cutting function is just as valuable as the welder itself.

Investing in a multi-process tool like the Everlast 165E is about more than just fixing things; it’s about taking control. It empowers you to build durable, customized infrastructure that solves problems permanently, increases efficiency, and makes your market garden more resilient and self-sufficient.