Grading Tilling with Box Blade

[mrutkaus]

Well the onions were gone from a nice sunny spot and I wanted to plant some corn or beans there, but I'd taken the tiller off and put the box blade on and used it with much success on the gravel drive.

Did I want to put the tiller back on for a 8x15' plot? Did I want to dig it up by hand or use a little electric cultivator I have? No.

But wait! That box blade has those little tiller bars than can be put WAY down.

So I tilled the plot with the box blade and it did VERY well.

Mike

 

[devildog1]

Hey Mike, Good job now that's using the ole noodle to save time and effert. In the the corporate world they call that multi tasking, hope the beans and corn grow well for you.
DevilDog

 

[carpenter383]

Box blades sure are handy. How many passes did it take to loosen the soil like that?

 

[mrutkaus]

Took 5 minutes, say three passes. Little rototiller hardly penetrated the dirt but it was nothing with the box blade. I may be tilling too much anyway, some say it ends up compacting the soil too much...

Mike

 

[jbrumberg]

Took 5 minutes, say three passes. Little rototiller hardly penetrated the dirt but it was nothing with the box blade. I may be tilling too much anyway, some say it ends up compacting the soil too much...

Mike

I agree. I "prepped" my garden with the boxblade earlier this year and was pretty pleased with the results. I did till the garden afterwards. I need to till/boxblade the garden again due to the weather. I may go with the boxblade this time. Jay

 

[3RRL]

It's great to see other guys use the boxblade for various purposes.
I too tilled my first food plot with the box blade, scarifiers down. It worked great. When we finally got a tiller and my wife wanted to start a small garden, the first thing she did was rip it up with the box blade scarifiers before mixing in mulch and fertilizer with her tiller. One really good thing is the box blade scarifiers pulled up all the big rocks and roots that would have been a problem. So she tilled pretty clean soil without wrecking her new tiller.

 

[Donkey Shade Farm]

Well the onions were gone from a nice sunny spot and I wanted to plant some corn or beans there, but I'd taken the tiller off and put the box blade on and used it with much success on the gravel drive.

Did I want to put the tiller back on for a 8x15' plot? Did I want to dig it up by hand or use a little electric cultivator I have? No.

But wait! That box blade has those little tiller bars than can be put WAY down.

So I tilled the plot with the box blade and it did VERY well.

Mike

I've been contemplating purchasing a box blade but couldn't justify just to grade our gravel lane. Glad to see someone found another use for it. What other uses have TBNers used box blades for? How is it for snow removal?

 

[dwhite]

I use my box blade for snow plowing (because I don't have scraper blade.) Just shorten the top link until the rear blade is off the ground about 1 inch. The box then rests on the front blade and does less damage to gravel drives. You have to swerve off the road each time the box gets full and drop the pile beside the road.

 

[santacruzer]

I have a Landpride BB048 box blade. I wanted to break up the ground before tilling but if I went very deep with the scarifers the box blade would load up with soil and I'd bog down.

I was able to get the scarifers further down into the ground by having a piece of steel welded on the back of the frame of the BB where the top link attaches. Some BBs have a second hole position further back already.

After drilling holes in this added piece I was able to hook up the top link further back on the BB, thereby raising the BB higher up, enabling me to lower the scarifers and not fill the BB.

It works so well that sometimes I have to make a few extra passes because the scarifers dig in so far...a LOT further than my rototiller can dig.

If someone is interested in a pic and wants to tell me how to post a picture I'll try it... you could PM me.

Besides the FEL my BB is most used attachment...you can do a lot of amazing things with the BB...and I'm getting better at it with practice.

Paul

 

[Reg]

If you aren't sure about BIG roots being there you can do it in reverse, if you don't want to rip them out (for now).
You can also do something similar with a tooth bar on the FEL by back dragging in float with the teeth at about 60 degrees - could probably do both at the same time.