How to smooth out a rutted lawn/meadow?

[dochockin]

Hi all,

I've had my Kubota B2920 for a few months now and put 4 hours on it (waiting for the weather to improve, ground to dry out, work to settle down...). So far so good!

I have a couple of sections of rutted 'lawn' I'd like to smooth out. It's not high quality lawn, nor do I need it to be. I would like it to be fairly smooth though, we have folks come and camp out during the summer (long weekend party!) and both areas are flat (from a hillside perspective), so I'd like them to be smooth and flat for tents.

I have a FEL, a chain harrow and a box blade. The ground is still pretty damp and soft. I tried smoothing today with the box blade, both teeth fully down and teeth removed.

With the teeth down, low gear, 4wd I just lost traction. With the teeth removed, and trying to scrape away the sod, I just ended up gouging two lines with the sides of the box blade...

Advice? Should I wait for the ground to dry out? Will a box blade do this job? Should I rent a walk behind roto-tiller instead? If the box blade will work, how should I set it up (I've been reading a number of TBN threads on box blade setup/angle)?

One concern I have with moisture level, is being on Vancouver Island, when the ground finally dries out, the rains are done for the summer... meaning I'll have to use sprinkler to reseed, rather then letting the rains water the grass seed.

 

[dave1949]

My experience is that sod--which is what you will rip up--is impossible to grade smooth. To get a smooth grade with light machine takes dirt fines. Your idea of the tiller is a good one. That would give you something easy to grade. I do my grading by back dragging the FEL bucket with a bit of down tilt and light down pressure, then finish by floating the bucket flat.

 

[RBA50]

Without knowing the whole situation, I might consider bringing in some topsoil and using it the fill the rutted areas, rather than tearing up everything and starting over. Dump the dirt along the ruts and use the box blade to spread and level with the rippers raised. If it's a really large area, might get expensive though.

 

[jeff9366]

Following LINK will take you to threads in the T-B-N archive with the word SMOOTHING in the title.

LINK:

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/search.php?searchid=1482044

 

[jel1988]

Fill in the rutts with topsoil apply seed. You may need to cut down the edges of the rutts if they have been squished up.

 

[jimpen]

Generally if you have any amount of property you will be able to find a spare pile of dirt around. And if not on your property your neighbors will most likely have some they want to get rid of.

So I'm sort of in the idea of jel1988. Fill in the holes, dumps and lumps with dirt. Maybe dump some seed and go on. In a season or two it will be nice and flat. I dumped dirt in various divots in my side yard yard and smoothed it over by early June. No seed. By late August the grass underneath had grown through and I couldn't tell.

I do have a bidder hole that is deeper but I figure if I fill it in the next few weeks I won't have to do any more for it.

 

[Great Grego]

I live in North Texas and have a ten acre meadow/grazing pasture. I don't hay. The horses tear it up during the winter and I wait for very dry weather and scoop silt from the pond and drop it in the deep holes or ruts and then box blade the whole pasture it works out beautifully. It is smooth enough that I run a finish mower over it. I swap out boer goats and horses to graze since the goats devour the weeds and the horses fancy the Bermuda it is perfect until it does not rain from June till September. I do only use the blade and tilt it to about 1" depth and that levels the ridges and fills in the hoof holes. This works well with our black soil and the grass grows in fast during these April rains.