Rennovating a garden

[Yander]

Foozle I was so taken aback by you posting that picture, I went to search your profile and see if you had other bizarre postings. Looks like you haven't said much lately so I have to take your word you aren't just messing with us with coming here all coy like saying you have this hard soil and no tool to deal with it then drag that beast out of the weeds claiming you've let it set because you are afraid you might harm it if you use it. Then comes the cherry on top about selling it. So YES,if you are in earnest with everything you've said,by all means take a torch to it and sell it for scrap before you lose a hand trying to hook it up to a tractor or stagger into it possibly killing yourself.

What????? Your saying HIS post is bizarre?

 

[jeff9366]

Try Stanford, KY on Danville (KY) Road...

Lincoln Manufacturing USA, LLC is the only manufacturing business with a web site. Is Lincoln the source for All Purpose Plows?

 

[Bobrown14]

I believe the Fred Cain APP, Bush Hog (brand) APP and Dirt Dog APP all emanate from the same plant. The only differences are the decals.

They all sure look exactly the same except for pricing. The EA version is the best price. The Dirt Dog is next up in price and the Brush Hog version is WAY pricey.

We have/had hard pan in our large garden plot.

It wont really go away with plowing we needed to had soil organic matter (organic farmer here) and let break down, run a cover crop before winter plant in September. We did oats and also did peas and oats mix. It dies back and decomps and also helps break down the hard pan and mostly keeps it loose-ish. Drought changes everything.

Best way to add soil organic matter is cover crops. All crops fix nitrogen. Some do it better than others. I like cover crops with deep roots for our hard pan and why we chose oats.

We will grow a patch of oats in another field to collect seed and also get straw/hay. If you have animals can harvest as hay. Our summer oats patch is not hardpan.

What we did for our veggie garden was an 18" moldboard plow our farmer neighbor ran several rows with in 1x only then we spread home made pot-ash then tilled it 2 or 3 times to mix in the pot-ash and then planted the first cover crop in the fall.

In spring we till in that cover crop and made beds with a bedder, spread straw in between rows and plant the beds.

Will repeat the tiller after harvest is finished and plant another cover crop that will die with the cold/frost and spread manure in late winter then till that in again in the spring make beds with straw and plant again. Repeat..

Our goal is no-till but we aint there yet. Still have some hard pan and now this year with drought the soil is pretty hard. Will likely spread some green sand at tilling time in the late fall see if that helps.

I should get a soil sample this fall after tilling and see what we got.

 

[Bobrown14]

Use it. Keep it. Once the controls are loosened up and adjusted you have a subsoiler superior to any TPH/Category 1 size, Three Point Hitch subsoiler marketed today.

At a farm auction your subsoiler would likely sell for $30 to $60. If you could duplicate that iron beast today you would pay $600 or more.

When you grease it do NOT oil the springs. That will cause them to break. Thats what my old timer garage door guy told me about those wound springs.

They work best with friction. With lubrication they slip to easy and instead of binding and slowing down they go full wound quickly and that breaks the spring.

 

[shooterdon]

I read the whole thread and thought about the "fun" we used to have when we had a garden growing up.

One year the city offered free waste from a sewage plant. The waste had been "treated". We would load it in bushel baskets and carry them in the trunk of the car. We must have made over 20 trips. Then rototilled it in.

So glad I got old and lazy. What I do not get free from people who grow too much, I buy in season. So much easier and cheaper. My neighbor has thrown in the towel and this will be the last year they have a garden. Another buddy is making his "bigger and better" so there will still be plenty of free stuff. One size does not fit all.

 

[bigtiller]

> I have 150' x 30' garden I've been planting for over 20 years.

There is a reason why in the Bible the Israelites were told to let their farm lie untouched every seven years and not to mix crops. If it goes to weed, the weeds, the worms, and the insects, replenish the soil. Some plants just should not be planted near their foe plants or in the same ground they have occupied. Since I can not relocate my blue berry bushes, I try to only plant companion plants near them and not foes. Though Japanese beetles are the worse foe of all. I go out at night to kill those little buggers off the plants. Rotating crops is a good thing.

Maybe it is time to let the bad producing plots to lie unused for a year, after mulching it, and seeding a cover crop.

I just want to mention there are a lot of people that had failed gardens this year and one thing they had in common was they used recently purchased seed.

You must not have as many as I have. For a few weeks in the summer, I can't go outside without a few landing on me.

 

[Alan W.]

Fred Cain is located in Danville KY and has been for years. They are an older company that was making equipment since I was young.
Lincoln Manufacturing to my knowledge doesn’t produce farm equipment.

 

[RalphVa]

You've gotten some pretty good advice. I had a 50x75 garden in the creek overflow area down below. Had about 2 or 3 feet of topsoil. Only used a Gravely rotary plow once to turn over the thick vegetation. Four years later, I ran over it with an old JD M soil ripper similar to the multi tine one shown in Jeff's video. Never tilled again. Only kept bringin in mulch with the tractor but ended up carrying it in from the electric fence from each end of the 50 ft rows. Never drove the tractor over it. I'd made raised rows by putting dual opposed discs onto the steel bar that the cultivator tines were mounted onto.