Tilling frozen ground?

[Lucky_Ducky]

I need to expand a driveway before spring. My plan is to till the ground, remove the organic layer for later use, and have base material tailgated over the length while I smooth everything with a land plane.

Can I use my 3pt tiller on frozen ground? Would I need to take multiple shallow passes? Or will I break something that should not be broken?

 

[JJT]

How deep is the frost? My Amish neighbors often plow frozen ground, if the frost is only a few inches deep. I'd think anything over an inch or so would be bad for the tiller.

 

[paulsharvey]

Is there a reason that you want to till before stripping? I don't know how deep your organics go, but I would think you can paint the edge, and strip 2 or 3" maybe 4", and have all the top soil stripped with the loader, and stockpile it for later use. I dont know much about soils freezing, but I would think if the soil is so frozen you can't dig it out with the loader, then it's probably too frozen for a 3 point tiller.

If your thought it to mix up the grass and organics with the top soil, and bucket it out, the grasses will break down pretty quickly in the stockpile

 

[Cycledude]

I need to expand a driveway before spring. My plan is to till the ground, remove the organic layer for later use, and have base material tailgated over the length while I smooth everything with a land plane.

Can I use my 3pt tiller on frozen ground? Would I need to take multiple shallow passes? Or will I break something that should not be broken?

Exactly what do you mean by “till” ?
My opinion using a 3pt tiller on frozen ground would be just asking for some very expensive trouble.

 

[jk96]

When our ground here gets frozen more than a couple inches I can't get through it with my 11k lb trackloader and bucket teeth. I can't imagine a tiller is going to break it up and if it does you are going to be basically tilling rocks. Give it a shot but I think its just going to be bouncing on top of the frozen ground.

 

[CH4Ohio]

Don't know where you're at or how cold it is . . . Wouldn't try to till frozen ground. Just going to beat your tiller and tractor to death for no reason. Why not try to cut it / scrape it out with your loader and a box blade? If it's too frozen for those, you might be better off getting someone to come in with a skid-steer for a few hours.

Also not sure about a land-plane smoothing "base material". Mine will bring #2 rock up to the surface if I'm not careful, but that's never my intent. I'm guessing you mean to use the land-plane on smaller gravel spread on top of the base material -- right?

 

[bmaverick]

I need to expand a driveway before spring. My plan is to till the ground, remove the organic layer for later use, and have base material tailgated over the length while I smooth everything with a land plane.

Can I use my 3pt tiller on frozen ground? Would I need to take multiple shallow passes? Or will I break something that should not be broken?

Our temps have gotten down to single digits. This past Friday we had a weird 53F as the high. The only thing to break the ground were the rippers late in the afternoon, and that was after several passes.

You got to have BEEFY shanks, else the cheap ones will snap apart.
- 1st pass 1-inch deep, don't let them sink, else you will have trouble getting un-stuck.
- 2nd pass might be the same.
- 3rd pass, you might be able to go a little deeper.
- 4th ....
- 5th .......

 

[Lucky_Ducky]

Is there a reason that you want to till before stripping? I don't know how deep your organics go, but I would think you can paint the edge, and strip 2 or 3" maybe 4", and have all the top soil stripped with the loader, and stockpile it for later use. I dont know much about soils freezing, but I would think if the soil is so frozen you can't dig it out with the loader, then it's probably too frozen for a 3 point tiller.

If your thought it to mix up the grass and organics with the top soil, and bucket it out, the grasses will break down pretty quickly in the stockpile

My organics go around 8-9” deep. I want to till it before scrapping so I can use the soil without the sod clumps for garden beds and leveling the yard.

 

[bmaverick]

My organics go around 8-9” deep. I want to till it before scrapping so I can use the soil without the sod clumps for garden beds and leveling the yard.

Organics hold more moisture, if it's frozen it will be harder than soil.

 

[CH4Ohio]

Frozen ground isn't going to "till" up into fine topsoil that you can simply spread into the garden and yard. IF you're able to break it up, it's going to be in big frozen dirt clods. The tiller is meant to be used on very dry ground.

You could still scrape it up and then run the tiller over it / through it this spring after it's dried out adequately.

 

[bigtiller]

I did it once and I advise to not waist your time doing it. The tiller will just bounce up/down.

We had an early Easter one year and a customer just had to get his potatoes planted on Good Friday. So he removed eight, 5x5 round bails of hay from his garden the morning before I came to do the tilling.

It was a sunny 50 degree day and the garden tilled up great, except for where the hay was stored. That ground was still frozen.

I ran 3 passes over that spot, getting less than an inch deep, and all I worked up was thin slivers of soil that the sun quickly turned into a greasy mess.

 

[jk96]

I did it once and I advise to not waist your time doing it. The tiller will just bounce up/down.

We had an early Easter one year and a customer just had to get his potatoes planted on Good Friday. So he removed eight, 5x5 round bails of hay from his garden the morning before I came to do the tilling.

It was a sunny 50 degree day and the garden tilled up great, except for where the hay was stored. That ground was still frozen.

I ran 3 passes over that spot, getting less than an inch deep, and all I worked up was thin slivers of soil that the sun quickly turned into a greasy mess.

Until you've tried it a lot of people dont realize how hard even an inch or two of frozen soil is to breakup. Similar to concrete in my experience.

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

An excavator is the only successful tool I have used for moving frozen ground.

 

[garry1p]

You might try it with box blade shanks. However; it will probably take many passes at shallow dept.

I had the great idea of digging up fire ant mounds in the winter and freeze the little critters to death.
As others said it was like trying to break up concrete.

 

[oldnslo]

If your tiller is one that counter rotates or lifts the soil you might have a chance if thin layer of frost and dig a trench to start tiller in so lifting frost as you drive forward.

When farming we use the practice of if you can shove a screw driver or similar object in the ground by hand you can usually do tillage that is lifting and breaking the frost crust.

 

[RayIN]

Your idea won't work, and you might wind up buying a new tiller if you proceed now. Frozen ground expands, as it thaws it begins to settle back to normalcy.
I recommend you wait until about the last of April after the ground has settled.

I love to watch those Amish plowing frozen ground with a team of horses, since they don't use tractors for power.

 

[wolc123]

If you decide to try it, please make a video. It would probably get tons of hits on YouTube.

 

[Lucky_Ducky]

If you decide to try it, please make a video. It would probably get tons of hits on YouTube.

This is the most subtle, yet best response to internet dumbassery

Spring thaw it is!