Raised bed hiller

[CDN Farm Boy]

So finally got around to getting the garden in for this year. We started a new area behind the house, roughly a couple thousand square feet. A big step up since our last one was only a couple hundred.

Stripped the sod with the backhoe then did primary tillage 12" or so deep by digging and dumping back in the same spot. I don't have a plow or middle buster so this was the best option with what I have. I could then go over it with the walk behind tiller. Added 3 or 4" inches of mushroom compost and tilled that in.

We'd done our layout based on the tractor width with the tires making the paths and the space between the tracks being the beds. Looking to make my job easier, I went to the scrap heap to see what I could come up with:





Old carry-all frame that was lying in the scrap heap at Dad's farm for as long as I can remember that made its way here when he sold the farm.

The other part is a frame I'd welded up to go in the hitch of the truck to push an off-road buggy I'd been building back into the garage.

Set it together and a couple quick measurements ad it looks like it might work:



Some old brick lintel and 3/8 x 3 flat to make the scrapers:







Welded the scrapers to the sub frame then bolted it to the carry-all frame and I was ready for a test run

 

[ferrari99]

Nice job.

 

[jlgurr]

Very nice! Any photos of the garden hills?

Thank you for sharing.

 

[CNC Dan]

I think you might need to add some diagonal braces between the uprights and horizontal parts.

And the angle of the forming plates looks a little too steep to me. Not sure the dirt will slide allong them. But it might. I don't know what kind of dirt you will be working with.

 

[Chilly807]

I bought a disc type hiller at auction last year, it works ok but I'd rather have a solid type. Food for thought..

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

No braces needed.....or wanted its plenty solid as it is and I can unbolt it from the carry-all frame with only 4 bolts if I want the frame for anything else.

You are right about the angle though, even at 45 deg, the dirt doesn't slide any where near as nice as I'd have thought. A good polishing with the grinder would likely help some.

It was also far too light and I added two 24" patio stones for some extra weight. Even at that, it didn't scrape as nice as I'd have liked and will either be adding a couple cultivator teeth on each side to loosen up the tire track or I'll be making a new one.....either a disk type or rotating of some form

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

Chilly, you got a pic of your disk hiller?

 

[Chilly807]

I can get some next week, although I don't particularly like the design. I got it for the disc portion, only paid $40. Couldn't see letting it go by for that price!
Its home built too, they used a 3 point drawbar to attach the discs to, and added a vertical frame for the top link.
Like yours it needed more weight, ideally there would be 2 discs on each side, the first disc funnelling the dirt to the second to form the hill.
It beats hoeing the dirt into raised beds, although I finished the job by doing that to tidy up.
Pics soon..

 

[Ken Pike]

May have posted this here before but here is a hiller I built using discs from an old disc harrow. Built to slide into my trailer mover/log skidder. Works great with my 1980 Kubota B7100 or my 1947 Ford 8N. Other photo is 1st one I built using metal parts from an old horse drawn set of hoes I found at an old dump. Worked good also.

 

[Chilly807]

May have posted this here before but here is a hiller I built using discs from an old disc harrow. Built to slide into my trailer mover/log skidder. Works great with my 1980 Kubota B7100 or my 1947 Ford 8N. Other photo is 1st one I built using metal parts from an old horse drawn set of hoes I found at an old dump. Worked good also.

Looks good Ken. Did you find you need more weight on the disc hiller? Someone stood on mine when we used it this year. I don't like doing that though, it's an accident waiting to happen.

The solid type works well because the shallow angle at the front gets the soil moving, then it angles more sharply at the back to form the bed. They do wear out faster, but most of us don't ever use them enough for that to be a real concern.

Glad to hear they got the situation under control in Moncton this morning. As bad as it was, it could have been much worse.

Sean