Need some help with plows

[J Bryan]

I have had my tractor for several years now. Mainly used it for cleaning up the 55 acres, using the bucket to push stuff, move dirt and brush hog.

I am now looking for plows as it is time to start grooming, planting.

Can someone give me the run down all all of the different plows and when to use them. For instance, I have access to a tandem disc plow, that is just for breaking ground right? How do I then break the clods up after that for say a spring vegetable garden? A culitvator?

Lets focus this on vegetable gardening and different plows and such...1st pass, second pass, finishng pass....

 

[LeadPoison]

What do you want to plant? How much? Size?

 

[Botabill]

WOW... the answers to this question could rival the novel War and Peace in volume. To begin a few questions are in order... 1/ What kind of crop do you want to grow? 2/ What is the raw state/structure of your land/soil? How is the drainage? You may find there are more questions than answers in the beginning of this discussion. I also suspect there will be several differing views on reaching your goal.

In my opinion the first thing to be done is to use a moldboard plow suitable for your soil conditions to flip the sod over and allow it to begin the rotting process. If the area is not to big you could use a rototiller. That is assuming you don't have brush, trees or other obsticles to deal with.

At this point I'll pause to let the next opinion chime in.

 

[Bob Ha]

First thing I did was use a bottom plow (Moldboard) then disked and harrowed to level the fields. A bottom plow rolls the soil over. 55 acres will need a 3 bottom plow (or larger) or a lot of time. Also depends on size of tractor and soil. I'm done with my bottom plow if anyone needs it. It's a John Deere semi-mount 145A 4 bottom plow 16". Plow is older than I am but in much better condition. I've sprigged all my land and have no futher need for the plow.

 

[J Bryan]

Thanks for the replies. I am just working about an acre right now. Will have onions, squash, pepper plants, water melon, canteloupe, peas, corn, lettuce, tomato plants......

A roto till is definitely not in my budget at this point. I do have a breaking plow and access to a tandem disc.

I guess my question is I want to understand what all of this different stuff is used for.

Chisel - To break ground only???
Disc - To break clods and smooth???
Cultivator - I got no clue what you would do with that????

The reason I ask, is I am going to start looking to buy equipment, but want to buy equipment I can or will use.

Thanks

 

[J Bryan]

Oh ya, my soil is heavy in clay and clods easy. I would like a nice smooth garden, not a dirt clod garden.

 

[wcampbell47]

Oh ya, my soil is heavy in clay and clods easy. I would like a nice smooth garden, not a dirt clod garden.

Let's talk vegetable garden on an order of say 50 x 50.

I like to remove the grass as the first step. I do that by using my 48" tiller set to 1 or 2 inches tilling depth. Till the area you want as a garden then make one more pass around the perimeter. Now that the grass has been uprooted use the front end loader to scrape down to bare soil. A ratchet rake works well too if you have one. Now that you are down to bare ground use a disc if you have one. I don't have a disc so I just set the tiller to cut 6 inches and have a go at it.

With heavy clay soil ( I have that also) add 12 yards of bank sand or washed sand. Spread and till the sand into the clay. Add anything else you want at this time to build your soil and till it in.

Here in the south we garden with raised beds. You can make raised beds with a tool bar with "hillers" or "bedders". I have a tool bar that I attach two discs 16 inches in diameter to. They are placed like this \ / on the tool bar. When the discs are engaged in the soil the forward motion of the tractor pushes the soil into a beautiful row.

Grass grows really fast in my area. Last spring I used Treflan in the garden. I had very little grass but using the Treflan required that I transplant everything. Nothing would start from seed which is why I did not have grass. I don't plant anything in the last 4 feet at each end of the row. If grass starts to creep into the garden from the edge I hook up the tiller and make a couple of passes.

I do all the hard work of soil prep but the wife does the planting. The more sand you use the easier it is to plant.

Now none of this is set in concrete ... but this works for me as well as several gardens I have put in for neighbors.

Have fun!

 

[SLHawkins]

We can all give you advice and opinions on this one. I recommend doing some reading and research to really figure out what it is you want to do. Back in the day, we turned the soil with a single bottom moldboard plow, then disc'd it, and then tilled prior to dropping in seeds (by hand). We used this method on gardens as small as a quarter acre up to 2 acres. Most recently, I used a chisel plow to break up a yard that where a neighbor wanted to put in a garden. I then came in behind that with a tiller to prep the seed bed.

Nowadays, a lot of folks are getting by with no-till gardening. I bought the chisel plow with the intention of refurbing my hay fields. After talking with my county extension agent, I realized that it is not necessary. I just need to kill the weeds, drop in some lime, and air seed. No tillage required.

Check out this site here for information on the different types of implements out there and thier uses. 'Ted from everythingattachments' has provided a whole bunch of videos. They can be found on youtube as well.

How To Video Demos - Implements & Attachments

Hawk

 

[F250DSLPWR]

With heavy clay soil, you may want to disc harrow, wait until the soil dries out and then disc harrow / drag harrow again to bust up all the clods. Before I got my tiller I bought a middle buster and would use it to create rows with my tractor. I ran the first row, then put my wheels in the furrow and ran the second row etc... worked pretty good. Check out the bayougardener.com. Don has really nice large gardens and videos.

 

[Botabill]

Where do you live? I live up north in Ontario and have heavy clay also. Sand additives can help however without other amendments clay soils can turn into a concrete when sand is added. The best soil conditioner for my soil has been manure, cover crops or other humis. Unless you have good soil to begin with no amount of plowing or cultivating will do much good without amendments like compost etc. After that concept is embraced more technical aspects like vertical plowing, no til, chisel plowing, rippers cultivating implements etc. become more relevant. Cheers!