Tiller vs my yard

[jenkinsph]

Right now is the perfect time to fix your lawn.
I would till it deep
smooth and grade with box blade
dress up with land plane grader blade
harrow it with a section type or chain drag
seed it heavy
cover with spike tooth harrow or my choice a pine straw rake
roll it to compact the seed
water it and keep it damp for two weeks or so till the seed is germinated.

that is what I did after cleaning up debris, and removing trees and stumps. Here is a picture after completion.

 

[jeff9366]

Ooh-La-La!

 

[Gator6x4]

If your tractor is 45 PTO Horse Power or larger, rent a Harley Rake and run over the yard. Follow this with a landscape rake, preferably with the depth gauge wheels. This will give you a sod ready yard or a table top smooth surface to sow grass seed.

If not familiar with Harley Rakes, do a internet search. Several videos are available showing them in use.

 

[crazyal]

My yard was a pain too. I borrowed a 6' disk from one of the local farmers and ran that over the lawn for a few hours to really cut the sod up. I have lots of rocks and a few old roots that came out of the ground. For them I used a ratchet rake a couple of times to remove them. The I used my land plane to smooth it back out. A tiller would work but I think I would back drag with your bucket vs packing it down too much with a roller. With a tiller you could till in some fertilizer with weed killer on the last pass. Just don't go deep on that last pass so the fertilizer will stay close to the surface. One thing I found out is grass seed is not cheap. We have a local garden/ ag place that sells seed by what ever size you want (kind of like the old hardware stores that had scales and brown paper bags for nails and screws) vs the big box stores. I was able to buy large 100 lb bags that weren't marked for retail by a local seed company that was mixed correctly for my location.

 

[coobie]

Ok, might be strange thread, but...

I hate my yard. I have a "mowable yard" area that currently takes me about 8 full hours of mowing with my beat old 18HP 42" riding mower. It's in the plans to buy a nice, big 72" cut ZT next year (wife has finally come to terms with the cost of such mower as one of her biggest complaints is that we never have time for other things in the summer...) anyway...

My yard is rough...very rough. I bang and bounce along on my rider now and I'm afraid the speed advantage of a big ZT will be nullified as I'll have to crawl along to keep from beating myself and the mower to death.

So, I got this crazy idea....get a tiller for my Mahindra, till the whole freakin thing up, smooth it out (I have a small roller) and plant new grass. I will do it in sections as doing the whole thing at once would be too much work and too costly for grass seed.

Has anyone ever tried this? Worth the effort?

If you purchase a ZTR next year I would buy a Ferris.IMHO they have the best suspension in the business.I would buy or rent a 5 or 7 shank ripper and rip up the lawn and finish with a York rake to clean up the debris.Then a heavy lawn roller.

 

[Stonehaller]

If your tractor is 45 PTO Horse Power or larger, rent a Harley Rake and run over the yard. Follow this with a landscape rake, preferably with the depth gauge wheels. This will give you a sod ready yard or a table top smooth surface to sow grass seed.

If not familiar with Harley Rakes, do a internet search. Several videos are available showing them in use.

A Harley rake is the way to go.

I did what OP is proposing a couple of years ago. Killed of the existing grass, rototilled, used a box blade to change the grade for better drainage and then a landscape rake with gage wheels. It was a lot of work as the rototiller really did not break up the grass roots into small enough clumps to allow smooth grading. I ended up hauling away so many clumps (with dirt attached) that I piled up with the rake that I had to get more top soil brought in.

I am currently doing another section of yard and this time a bought a used Harley rake with gage wheels and fixed it up. The Harley rake is amazing. It will bust up root clumps, separating the dirt from the roots. The rake will windrow roots, rocks and other debris to make it easier to pick up and leave all the top soil behind. It does an excellent job leveling a rough area. I was doing some minor grade changes again and never even bothered with the box blade. I moved fill dirt around and rough spread with the loader, grabbed the piles with the Harley rake and it spread and leveled.

I am running a 6 foot rake with my L39 (30 HP PTO) and it powers the rake fine.

 

[Deere Dude]

How is your lawn riding across with your big tractor? I'm thinking that a big mower will be comfortable enough to mow with successfully and quickly so no lawn tear up would have to be done. Get it, try it and go from there.

 

[Ken45101]

I don't really feel that a tiller, or a plow, is the best approach.

A disk, maybe, followed by something to smooth it out (I've used old chain link fence with some heavy timbers on it in the past but a landscape rake with gage wheels is very good.)

Although I've never used or actually seen one, from everything I read, a Harley rake is the best approach. If all else fails, you could rent a skid steer with one for a day.

A good, heavy landplane might be another option, whether or not you chew up the surface first. But it would take many more passes than a Harley rake.

Your fears are well grounded, a zero turn rides very rough on rough ground. On some of our "lawn" (was horse pasture), I do just as well or better getting out the old B2710 tractor with mid mount mower. It's definitely a better ride.

 

[jenkinsph]

Once you grade the lawn area and get it smoothed out you can use a rotary tiller, disc or Harley rake to prepare a good seedbed. All of these will do a good job with it. I would be more concerned with which one I had available to utilize. I bought a tiller and have used it and like it because in moving my equipment around on jobs being compact is important to me. I wouldn't get lost in the arm chair discussions here.

Proper grading of the lawn area will make mowing much faster and easier to do. You will be able to mow at much higher speeds if the ride is smooth an the cut will look much better if the mower deck isn't jumping up and down.
Here are some recent pictures of a small pasture after grading with my box blade, it is smooth enough to run a ztr at a fast mowing speed.
Will be planting this patch this week or weekend.

 

[xtruckerbob]

My wife and I mow about 10 acres (2 acres in yard the rest was pasture) which was as rough as a scrub board. To smooth it out I sprayed Roundup on it, waited 2 weeks and sprayed it again. I waited about 2 more weeks till I had an area of really dead grass and weeds. I then pulled my disc over it 2 times cutting it 3 to 4 inches deep. This mulched all grass and weeds to a point where there is no weeds, root balls or excess grass to hang up. Afterward I pulled a row conditioner over it a couple of times followed by a roller. I put 500 pounds of 13 13 13 per acre and I now have a lush area of Bermuda grass mixed with Bahia grass which was all volunteer. Our area is almost as smooth as a golf course.