Garden Hiller

[junkjunkie]

Seeing all the cool stuff everyone has built on here, I had to at least throw one of my projects in the mix (I believe it's the only one I have pictures handy for). After we planted the garden the first time this year, it rained just enough every few days that the seed basically rotted in the ground and a few good frog-chokers put some pretty good washes through our rows (fixed that since with a little additional grading). Not being willing to forego the garden (or hoe up rows by hand) I decided to build this. I made it 2-gang to allow adjustment of the rows and keep the occasional stray rock that grows in our soil from wedging between adjacent discs. I'm working on the remaining pieces to do beds with plastic mulch with a simple drop in setup. That part probably won't get used until next spring.

I did these rows on 36" centers, which is a bit crowded, but we had a lot to plant this year and limited space as I still have a lot of clearing and preparation to do.

 

[countrybumpkin]

Looks great, and does a good job. My rows are about 52 inch centers but I cultivate with a two row cultivator that I rearranged down to a one row that I grew up using on my grandpas farm. With my R4s that about the narrowest I can get by with and still cultivate. I too have been thinking about trying the plastic mulch setup, think it sure would help weed control.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Every year, I much in my gardens with grass hay that I cut myself,

I do little to NO weeding and the grass is tilled in, in the fall, to feed the flowing years plants...

It works perfectly!

SR

 

[tcreeley]

Up until this year I used to hill. I use biodegradable plastic for the rows. If I use hay for mulch I get snails and slugs. At the end of the season I can till the bio plastic (corn starch) in to have the bed ready for the spring.The bio plastic is the best way to deal with the heavy weeds. I like the hiller for the heavy rain that can flood the garden. I'll see how it goes, figure out some more uses for the hiller. Got it off ebay.

 

[Creamer]

Seeing all the cool stuff everyone has built on here, I had to at least throw one of my projects in the mix (I believe it's the only one I have pictures handy for). After we planted the garden the first time this year, it rained just enough every few days that the seed basically rotted in the ground and a few good frog-chokers put some pretty good washes through our rows (fixed that since with a little additional grading). Not being willing to forego the garden (or hoe up rows by hand) I decided to build this. I made it 2-gang to allow adjustment of the rows and keep the occasional stray rock that grows in our soil from wedging between adjacent discs. I'm working on the remaining pieces to do beds with plastic mulch with a simple drop in setup. That part probably won't get used until next spring.

I did these rows on 36" centers, which is a bit crowded, but we had a lot to plant this year and limited space as I still have a lot of clearing and preparation to do.

Don't you have to sue a lot of extra water with all that surface area to dry out? Especially if your plants are on top of the hills where the water goes down and out.

 

[junkjunkie]

With the hills, we've actually always had very little problem with drying, even with the Georgia heat, and significantly better root development. We cultivate by raking up from the bottom of the furrows and the hills seem to wick water up from the furrows (such as after a rain). We're also using drip tape now, so when we do water and fertilized it is focused on the top of the hills and saturates downward and we're using considerably less water than we did with conventional sprinklers. The surface of the hills will often appear dry, but 1/2" or so below the surface stays well hydrated.

 

[muddstopper]

I am trying somethinng a little new for me this year. I usually till the ground pretty good and then use the troy built hiller attachment to makes hills. Then i just lay off rows down the middle of the hills and plant my taters in. I use one of those wide landscape rakes to cover the seed, raking soil from between the rows to the top of the hills. I then go back a few weeks later and run the hiller between the rows and then fill the middles with mulch. This year, I have misplaced my hiller attachment so had to improvise. I stilll followed the same routine except I didnt have the hiller to make the hills with, which meant a lot of rakeing. With the rain every wkend, my tatter plats have gotten to big to run the tiller thru again so I weeded by hand and then hilled again with the rake. I then took the FEl on the tractor and used it to speard green horse bedding between the rows. Once I had the middles pretty full, I topped everything off with a wood chip compost I make. It has composted to the point it looks like black dirt. The fresh horse bedding is what is new, sawdust and horse poop. I should ether have a good crop of taters or a good crop of vines. My rows are a little narrow so I had some vine damage while straddling the rows, but it looks to be coming back. Next year the rows will be 48in wide to allow better straddleing with the tractor and should result in less vine damage. Of course If I had gotten to all this before the vines got so big, I wouldnt of had hardly any damage, but it is what it is. Seeing the home made hiller of the OP'S makes me want to build one before next season.