Cultivator setup / row spacing?

[JMER817]

Planted a 1/2 acre garden on recently purchased property this year. Wow, a ton of rocks! To prep I started to till with a 3pt mounted tiller and stopped because of all the noise and jumping. Decided that I will plow and disc until I can "hopefully" clear the majority of rocks over time. So I'm now wondering the best way to cultivate between rows to keep the weeds down. In the past I have used a "troy built" walk behind tiller. I'm afraid I will beat the crap out of it as well. So leaning towards a 3pt single or double row cultivator to mount on the back of my John Deere 4120. Yes the tractor is rather large for cultivating and that is where the issue is. The outside width of my wheels is 72" The inside width is 36". About the only row width that I see that might work would be 48" which is rather wide. Any suggestions?

 

[bcp]

Set the depth on the Troy-Bilt so it only tills about an inch deep.

Bruce

 

[randy41]

straddle 2 rows. cultivate in between.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I hear you on the rocks. I put in a new section of garden this year on a nice sandy hill and I think if I had all the rocks out, it would no longer be a hill. I started with a disk and just kept turning rocks last year. I would disk and pick up rocks. Finally though I had them all so began tilling and just bang, bang. So I put on my cultivators which would turn up lots of small rocks but also shear bolts when it hit big ones. Finally I put on my box blade and set the scarifiers as deep as I could, hung rocks large enough that I broke 2 of the scarifiers but I did uproot about 4 full FEL loads of medium to large sized rocks and there are still more but I needed to get it planted this year. I will work it some more this fall. Funny thing, I had it well tilled up last year and not one piece of grass grew on it, this year it looks like a lawn with all the grass coming up. It has been too wet to till so the grass will be pretty tall by the time I can get to it.

You should set up your rows so that one middle is in center of your tractor and other two middles are centered with center of your tires if they are wide enough apart to make two rows. Otherwise you would need to make one wide row in the center of your tractor which with your description of 36" between the tires would make sense. Allow half the width of each tire to be within the row you are straddling so you have a wide middle which you can then keep tilled. 48" row is what you have to deal with due to the wide tires on your tractor. No problem if you have plenty of acreage.

I tried all sorts of combination to get my corn field ready after tilling and finally just used my B26 and walked it down using the tires to compact a middle rather than trying to use cultivators to row it up. It is 48" center to center of tires and I just planted two rows of corn about 10" apart with the little walk behind planter. It was spacing seed 12+" apart so it worked out well with two narrow band rows of corn per row.

 

[Poopdeck Pappy]

For a 1/2 acre garden, what's wrong with a good old garden hoe to keep the weeds out?

 

[JMER817]

straddle 2 rows. cultivate in between.

I tried the math...inside of tires are 36" outside 72" rows at 30" apart puts the plants within 3" of the inside of the tire. I'm running over the next row with the tire. Rows at 24" same issue. Rows at 36" inside of tires hits. Draw it up and you will see what I am saying.

 

[JMER817]

For a 1/2 acre garden, what's wrong with a good old garden hoe to keep the weeds out?

Of course I will hoe around the plants. I used to Hoe 10 acres crops when I was a kid. I'm not going to hoe between the rows on a 1/2 acre! I have better things to do with my time and money to spend on required equipment.

 

[bcp]

If the rocks are too many or too large for shallow rototilling, take the tiller off (if you have that model) and use sweeps or a rolling cultivator behind the drive unit on a home-built mount.

From:
Wearparts - Row Crop Cultivator/Other Cultivator Sweeps and Accessories



Bruce

 

[randy41]

I tried the math...inside of tires are 36" outside 72" rows at 30" apart puts the plants within 3" of the inside of the tire. I'm running over the next row with the tire. Rows at 24" same issue. Rows at 36" inside of tires hits. Draw it up and you will see what I am saying.

you've got some fat tires. are your wheels adjustable?

 

[bcp]

you've got some fat tires. are your wheels adjustable?

Weld up some narrow tires.



Bruce

 

[RG1]

I tried the math...inside of tires are 36" outside 72" rows at 30" apart puts the plants within 3" of the inside of the tire. I'm running over the next row with the tire. Rows at 24" same issue. Rows at 36" inside of tires hits. Draw it up and you will see what I am saying.

I assume you have 17.5 x 24 R4 rears since you are claiming 36" inside and 72" outside. 30" rows will work fine if you are locked into fixed row widths. C-T-C of rear tires is 54", so as you said, straddle two plant rows or one 30" in between row, tires within 3" of each of plants at each side. Turn around and come back down with one tire in the same dirt row as it was on last pass, only with the tire 3" from the next row over that wasn't cultivated.

Or, if hand planting, use whatever size row spacing you need to keep you fairly centered with your tires in each inbetween row.

 

[Ford850]

Take the measurement from between the 2 rear tire centerlines, and divide by 2. In your case, the centerlines would be 54", which puts your row spacing at 27" to get 2 rows evenly spaced and the tires centered between rows. That's 4 1/2" from the row to the inside edge of the rear tires, and the same spacing from the outside of the tires to the next row. That makes it easier to keep centered while cultivating too.

 

[Ed of all trades]

Just buy an old farmall cub or super a and you would be all set.

 

[JMER817]

Just buy an old farmall cub or super a and you would be all set.

Thought about that....had one on the farm when I was younger.

 

[JMER817]

Take the measurement from between the 2 rear tire centerlines, and divide by 2. In your case, the centerlines would be 54", which puts your row spacing at 27" to get 2 rows evenly spaced and the tires centered between rows. That's 4 1/2" from the row to the inside edge of the rear tires, and the same spacing from the outside of the tires to the next row. That makes it easier to keep centered while cultivating too.

Possible! Not sure if I can get my rows straight enough though.