Old field... to garden?

[PeterK]

Here in Maine as well as in your neck OTW, Springtime is the best time to remove sod because the frost pushes it loose from the soil. It pretty easy to rip up a big section just after the snow and when the ground is still a little frosty. Trouble is that when you remove the sod, up comes any topsoil attached to the roots. So put it aside so that you can remove the field grass and roots once it dries a bit. Too cold to till for a while so I pile on the compoast and manure (all you really need for great pumpkins!) until things dry enough to till.

Hope this helps your approach, works for me!

 

[radioman]

well -- I was in your shoes the first time I setup the garden and destroyed the walk behind. Now I have a 3pt tiller and its the cats meow- Just kinda wished I had it sooner. If budget is really a concern - a middle buster will do it and its really not that expensive. In fact -- if you have metal fab skills - you might be able to rig up a middle buster plow on one of your boxblade rippers shank.
Using your boxblade with one rippers down will act like a subsoiler and will break up the roots for sure, but you still need to turn over the sod so it can kill off whatever is growing on it before tilling.
using a 3pt tiller will save you many steps and can do it in one shot -- although you most likely will get roots wrapped around the shaft the first few times you use it in virgin soil. Its all about money and time..

 

[koamfps]

Hire someone to come flip the dirt for you then wok it up:2cents:

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

As you said it's existing sod/weeds, you need to either plow/disk or till. (plow and till would be my preference) You need something that will 'chop' up the sod. A cultivator won't do that.

 

[mikehaugen]

I did my 40x80 garden with an Ariens 7020 rear tine tiller. It only took 3 (maybe 4) passes until I had the tines buried. Took me about 4 hours total. I think the horse is probably a heavier tiller and would be even better. This was in sod that had been a corn field probably 4 or 5 years prior, but still pretty compacted. The first year will be the worst, but after that it should be better, especially if you do it at the end of the season as well.

Last year I tried my 2 bottom moldboard and went over it with a pulverizer to smooth it out. It worked ok, and made the tilling easier. This year I plowed in the fall, and am waiting till spring to go over with the pulverizer if I even need to- looks like the weather has smoothed it out pretty well so far, we'll see. Then again, this winter has been strange, a lot of freeze-thaw cycles, snow... rain... snow and whatever.

 

[vtsnowedin]

The best thing as far as the soil preparation goes would be to roll it over with a plow. It puts the sod upside down where it rots releasing all the nutrients in the decaying root mass without killing all the worms or greatly decreasing the beneficial bacteria in the soil. A tiller chops up the weed plants into thousands of pieces and leaves plenty of them at the right depth to sprout up over night. Also Adirondack soil (read rocks with a few bits of earth in between) can be very hard on tiller teeth in new ground where you have no idea where the big ones are. A two bottom plow is probably as far as you should go and a one bottom might save time and do a better job as when you hit a rock with a two bottom it messes up two furrows for a one furrow rock. Play with your plow adjustments until you get them right and get a full roll over of the fresh sod with little or any grass showing in the finished work. Then let it dry till it will crumble when kicked and go over it with a disk harrow until you have a good seed bed. Probably need to harrow in some lime at that time depending on the soil test. Don't worry if it isn't perfect as next year you can roll it over again and getting a good job in old ground is much easier. And of course you will have picked out a lot of those rocks the plow found with your loader and won't have to deal with them again. Oh one last thing. Potatoes love to grow in fresh sod from new ground.

 

[crazyal]

Can you weld and do you own a welder? I'm seriously thinking of using the ripping shanks from a box blade/ grading scraper for the first few passes on virgin soil. I was just going to make a copy of the 4"x4" thick wall tube that holds the rippers to my scraper. It would be simple to make, cheap, and would handle the rocks better than a plow, disc, or tiller.

 

[couchsachraga]

Have I welded? Yes. Would I say I can? No! I've used a friends welder a few times now (stick), but keep threatening to get a MIG for all number of projects I have.

I'm going to ask around and see if anyone has a 3ph tiller, or if any of the rental places do (doubtful I'm sure), then ask around for old middle busters and subsoilers and such. Not much turning up right now, but we're a few months away from spring, so most of them are likely under a foot or more of snow.

 

[bigtiller]

Have I welded? Yes. Would I say I can? No! I've used a friends welder a few times now (stick), but keep threatening to get a MIG for all number of projects I have.

I'm going to ask around and see if anyone has a 3ph tiller, or if any of the rental places do (doubtful I'm sure), then ask around for old middle busters and subsoilers and such. Not much turning up right now, but we're a few months away from spring, so most of them are likely under a foot or more of snow.

Do a search on Craigs List. As time gets closer to planting, more and more adds will show up for hiring someone to till gardens. Your little 40x40 will be a breeze for a guy that knows what he is doing, and it will be easy on your pocket book.