Why a tiller?

[Egon]

Manure and weeds seem to go together. Plow or tiller - really don't think there will be much difference.

Egon

 

[DocHeb]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I am getting hard spots where my tiller actually raises over them and dosent till deep enough )</font>

Use a sub-soiler from TSC to loosen up those spots, it will be less expensive than a plow, and has a easier learning curve. It will also help out with the drainage.

 

[LBrown59]

<font color="purple"> I have a 4' front blade and a tiller for my Bolens.

The Bolens was not set up to use both attachments at the same time.

I used the tiller to break up the ground then the blade to move the loose dirt.
I got tired of constantly changing back and forth between these implements while doing small landscaping jobs around the yard.

One day I rigged things so I could leave both attachments on the tractor while going back and forth from the blade to the tiller.
When you drop the tiller to till the blade is lifted up off the ground. When you finish tilling and lower the blade to push the loosened dirt it lifts the tiller up off the ground.
Works like a teeter toter with the blade on one end and the tiller on the other end.

I have moved quite a lot of dirt with this little ole BOLENS eight horse power garden tractor set up like this.

This tractor has a manual left lever for the attachments.
Let me tell you lifting the blade or tiller is not a light lift.
After I rigged both of them to work on the tractor at the same time lifting either one of them is a breeze because one of them counter balances the other one.

 

[Bully]

The tiller works really well for taking out the Gopher population, it's like Caddy Shack around here sometimes.

 

[LBrown59]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( There are a lot of things you can do w/ a tiller.. if you set it up to barely touch the ground.. you can de-thatch a grass lawn for reseeding. I'll do some skim-tilling on a corn field after I've harvested & bushhog the stalks.. to mix the plant material into the soil before planting winter wheat.. you can go a good speed doing this. W/ multiple passes you can level areas out flat. For areas of the garden that I'll be putting in hills for planting.. tilling deep makes it easier to make the hilled planting beds. Also makes a good counter weight for FEL work. If you don't have a plow, disk, or boxblade.. or you intend to plant a small garden plot.. you can make do w/ a tiller and the FEL.. maybe not as efficient.. but you can get it done. )</font>

Here is something you can do with a tiller that you can't do with a plow and disk.

Back up into a pile of dirt and till up a loader full of real fine dirt that you need for small fine landscaping jobs.

Another way is to scoop up a loader bucket or 2 of dirt from the dirt pile dump it and then run the tiller through the dumped dirt going in deferent directions.

 

[hwp]

Well in my case it was a question of whether or not it could be done. The only front mount tractor that I had seen with a tiller was a Steiner. My old Snapper had a 3ph tiller that I used a lot. I don't have a lot of use for a tiller now but I thought it would be fun to see if it could be done. I bought an old Kubota K420 3ph tiller, cut the 3ph pieces off, turned the gear box around, put a reversing gear reducer on, put some mounting arms on and voila. I got to use it this summer on a neighbour's property. I had to make a couple of minor design corrections, but it worked well. Now I have a tiller and looking for something to do with it. My Kubota dealer was so impressed he took pictures of it and sent them to Kubota as a suggested attachment for front mount tractors. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[nkr]

Last summer I used my tiller (6' KingKutter on a JD990) to till 15 acres of what had been a corn/soybean field unused and gone to weeds for 2 years. I took two passes perpendicular to each other at full depth running in first gear (1.0 mph). It left a smooth, fine seedbed, after I picked up the rocks that the tiller kicked up.

I then broadcast seeded oats, clover and rye grass for a cover crop, then put the tiller back on and set it for 1" depth. Then I ran over the whole field in 4th gear (3.3 mph) to cover the seeds. The seeds came up very even and thick.

I used the tiller later to begin creating planting beds and will continue this in the spring. Great attachment!!

 

[GregH]

Tillers are great in their environment, meaning no large rocks, hidden stumps or limbs and such. They can be detrimental to the continued operation of the tiller.. Otherwise great tool
GregH

 

[JeffSpencer]

How much can I expect to pay for a decent tiller?

 

[_RaT_]

Check out CCM. I was in the process of getting a 66" to 72" model for my tractor. I recall they were about $1200 to $1500 last year