Garden time...Oh boy!

[jinman]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Here's a pic of the cultivator I use. Who knows how old it is, rows up nice. )</font>

Rob, that's a dead ringer for mine. I see a nameplate on the left A-frame. I'd bet it says Dearborn somewhere on there. You have two more long feet on the ends of yours that I don't have that give you a little closer sweep spacing. When you don't need them, do you ever take the sweeps out and turn them upside down in the adjustable feet? I do that so I don't put them someplace and forget where they are. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I also have a nice middle-buster for mine. If you look at the picture of me putting the sweep on, you can see where the front angle has been beefed up. When my Dad first put the middle buster on the cultivator, the frame was not stong enough and crumpled. A little reinforcement and it works perfectly. That middle-buster sure saved a lot of work when it came to digging Irish potatoes. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

Doc Bob: A cultivator is used to lay out row crops and to plow them after they come up until they get so big you would knock them over running over them. There have been many rows of cotton plowed with this style cultivator and young vegetable crops also respond well. By plowing next to the young plants you keep the soil loose and pull in loose dirt around the base of the plant to encourage root growth. Only when the plants get too big to plow do you have to hoe and weed by hand. This type plowing is normally done only once or twice at most until the plants get too big. At least that's how we always used our cultivator.

Oh... and my Dad was too cheap to buy a 3PH planter for use only once per year, so we had a horse-drawn planter with a 3-gallon hopper. we'd chain it behind the center sweep on the tractor and pull it. Either me or my brother had to walk behind the tractor when planting. He and I get a big laugh about the knock-down dragout fights we had out in the middle of the field over who would drive the tractor and who would eat dust behind the tractor. I didn't want to do all the walking and he didn't want to have to straighten out my crooked rows. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif One of our neighbors used to tell my brother that he should not get upset at me because you can get a lot more planted in a crooked row than a straight one. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Egon]

Of course I beleive you Jinman! It's the well tuned muscular help I'm in need of. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Shucks, there's even an evening lakeside firehill to enjoy after a nice swim to cool off and remove all the sweat. And if its a good evening the loons and owls will do some talking

Many onions are biennials. The flower head and seed pod of some look very nice. Try putting a few grocerystore onions in the ground for an experiment. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif



For the small green onions starting from seed works well.

Also note that onions prefer cooler weather.

Egon

 

[chili]

Jinman, I recently bought a cultivator like yours from one of my elderly friend down the road. It was missing one shaft that the sweep attaches to. Do you know where i could find one? I could not find one locally. Thanks for any info.

 

[jinman]

Here's a few more pictures we shot last night. The first is the entire garden area now that it is planted. Notice the end of the soaker hose on the left. I bought 800' of soaker hose in 50'sections. The hoses work great for watering with very little water wasted.

 

[jinman]

This is the section where we planted sets: squash, peppers, tomatoes, onions, and cantaloupe in hills. Our sad looking little fence went up quickly to keep out the cottontail rabbits. One rabbit can devastate a garden very quickly. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif At the end of the season, we'll roll up the chicken wire for use year-after-year.

 

[jinman]

A close-up of the tomatoes. We planted them about 5' apart so disease can't move from plant to plant. We cut the bottoms out of plastic pots and put them around the tomatoes to help prevent cutworms. I hope the little pots are to the cutworms what the chicken wire is to rabbits. We'll also dust with insecticide at the first indication of any infestation.

 

[jinman]

Finally for today, here is a picture of our "garden guards" on the job watching out for deer. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Egon]

Looking good Jinman. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

we also use cans with the bottom cut out for our seedlings.

Picture of last years town garden. Kinda sick when compared with yours. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Egon /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[PineRidge]

Great looking garden Jim. You need to post more pictures as your plants start to mature a bit. Looks like you're going to be eating a lot of fresh veggies real soon.

 

[jinman]

Chili, I don't know for sure where to tell you to look, but you might try to keep your eyes open for farm estate auctions in your area. You might find something there. I also would check with a large tractor dealer. My New Holland dealer has a whole aisle in his strore dedicated to sweeps and chisel feet. I haven't noticed the sweep mounting shafts, but he might know where to order them. I'd also check with a dealer in your area. Other than that, you'll probably end up having to fabricate something. I know I don't have any extras and I hope I don't lose any of the ones I have.