Gardening prep question....need your advice please!

[kubota4me]

Lots of good info here. Had planned to do soil sample long time ago. That's really the best way to let you know where you are at. I think I will ease into the raised beds with as many as I can get built during the winter. Next year, I can add more. I will always use a hybrid system I think due to not being able to grow everything in raised beds. So some rows will be used. I like the idea of a chipper/ shredder. I believe in the long term, raised beds are in my body's best interest. I've had one back surgery, don't want anymore. Does anybody have good things to say about Husqvarna tillers? Troybilt doesn't seem to be like the old ones in quality. Troybilt is owned by a company that markets about 6 different brands. Thanks for your responses.

 

[oldballs]

Some TBN'ers use the little Mantis tiller which is light and good for weeding. Myself, I use lots of straw, mulch and a hoe....hoeing is peaceful. Another thought is that when summer heat gets tough to deal with, I garden at sunrise for two-three hours. Then come in and take a nap. And, as others have noted, I'd cut that garden in half to start with so you can get more ideas on your ability and need for various equipment or methods. My garden is 50 x 100 and produces more than me, my relatives and neighbors can consume as fresh produce. Storing potatoes and onions is easy for me however. As to a manual tiller, that's a tough call considering your situation. Maybe trade your "L" for a smaller "B" type Kubota tractor and get all the needed attachments. Cheers, Mike

 

[Chilly807]

We have a garden roughly 30 x 100, gives us 5 rows plus two square beds at each end for squash, cucumbers, etc. I use a 2 bottom plow to turn it with , and a 6.5 foot disc harrow to prepare the soil for rows. We have deer trouble too, or would have if we didn't fence it.
I take out the end poles each fall to get the tractor in to plow and disc. As soon as the garden is planted in the spring we replace the end poles and string wire for electric fence.
I have mixed feelings on raised beds. Getting the tiller in them might be a challenge in itself, and if the soil isn't turned at least 6 inches deep each year it'll slowly compact over time.
I think I'd sooner deal with rows and get a decent tiller to keep the weeds down between them. Although the Huskies aren't what they used to be, neither is anything else. Same with Troy-built. A old horse model sold here at an estate auction recently for $15, with a blown engine. Hindsight being what it is, I should have bought the dam* thing and put a new engine on it.

I picked up a 3-point hiller at the same auction, might need a little refinement to get it to work, I've never used one.

Sean

 

[corl]

Mulching around plants is a great alternative to weeding. I use about 200 cubic yards of mushroom compost every year- some tilled in and some mulch. Combined with every other row planting I don't spend more than an hour a week, if that, weeding and my garden is more than twice what you have planned.Most of my garden time is spent in soil preparation, planting and harvesting. Its hard to call tractor time labor as it always puts a smile on my face and saves my back.

 

[kubota4me]

Oldballs, thanks for the info. I have 16.4 acres and have used that L4400 for everything including pulling large trees. It has saved my butt a ton of work. I will look for something....don't know quite what it will be yet.

 

[woodlandfarms]

Have you ever heard of a prepper? Go out and look at some of the stats of how much land/garden space it takes to support a family if SHTF. I can, I stock dehydrated foods, freeze dried, band aids and bullets. Now do you get the drift??

This area will also contain a few fruit trees, so this space will seem not-so-big very quickly.

I hope I didn't offend Kubota4me.. Maybe I am misinterpreting this response. Wasn't my intent, just seemed like a lot of garden but as you say, if you are in the End of the world club, it may not be enough. One bad year can make family very hungry.

 

[woodlandfarms]

OK.. wait.. this garden is being established for EOTWAWKI. So right off the bat you need to take out gas powered maintenance in your planning. I would be looking at what you could get a horse or steer through pulling a plow. stay away from raised beds as watering will be a nightmare.

 

[RSKY]

I have a 150' x 50' garden that supplies my family and both my daughters. With the size you have I would use the row skipping method laying out your rows. Get somebody to disk it three or four times. Then get a tractor mounted 4' tiller to go between the rows. Then you can literally drive a golf cart between the rows to pick. Do a YouTube search for the cajungardener for more ideas.

 

[RSKY]

Also do a YouTube search for 'bucket gardening' and 'gutter gardening'. I'm going to try the buckets for some bush tomatoes and one strip of gutter for something else. Doing the gutter type at youngest daughter's house just to experiment.

 

[kubota4me]

I hope I didn't offend Kubota4me.. Maybe I am misinterpreting this response. Wasn't my intent, just seemed like a lot of garden but as you say, if you are in the End of the world club, it may not be enough. One bad year can make family very hungry.

No offense taken. Maybe I could have responded differently. My wife and I are very concerned about changing events in our country and the rest of the world and we want to come up with a plan that would allow us to live off our land plus whatever food we can store for long term...etc. rice, wheat berries, beans, etc. we would like to have at least one years worth of food if not more. We had read that the amount of garden it takes to feed a family for one year is a lot more than most people would ever guess, planning for a calorie intake of 1400 calories per day and a lot more if manual work is involved. So, my little 100' x 120' garden is not that terribly big when you consider 6 people to live off for potentially one year. Sorry, for not explaining my situation better.

 

[kubota4me]

OK.. wait.. this garden is being established for EOTWAWKI. So right off the bat you need to take out gas powered maintenance in your planning. I would be looking at what you could get a horse or steer through pulling a plow. stay away from raised beds as watering will be a nightmare.

I was looking for a diesel powered tiller. There are some available as I understand. All my vehicles run on diesel except my car. Diesel with a good stabilizer will last up to 10-12 years in some circumstances. With a large tank of diesel, they would operate at least for awhile given you can defend your property.

 

[NorTracNY]

If you're planning for a end, I assume you already have animals? Protein and fat are very important. Don't rely on the wild deer population.

 

[charlz]

You already have a large tractor to do the heavy lifting type work... why not add a small one? Depending on where you live you might be able to pick up an older b7100 or the like that was used as a mower and get a 4' tiller for it. Don't need the loader etc. you already have that covered and that would help keep the cost of a used one down. Without the loader it would be a lot more maneuverable with fences etc. Sometimes I wish I had a bigger tractor but really the small size suits using it as a 'garden tractor' etc. much better. Also gives you another tractor to tow trailers etc while you load with the big tractor etc.

Growing an EOTWAWKI garden should be a great experience. I think a lot of people severely underestimate what it takes to grow a garden you can actually live off. I see on prepper shows etc where people have tons of seeds saved but no garden started and probably no real idea on how to garden. I have experimented with growing 'in bulk' for a few years. It has some unique issues, like a lot of the same foods all ready at the same time etc. For a garden to support a family year round you have to look at canning, freezing and bulk storage. Since I haven't gotten into canning I have sort of arrived at only growing a few staple crops that store. Winter squash and potatoes are pretty easy to store. Corn I freeze some but in your case (EOTWAWKI) freezing isn't really something you want to have to rely on.

If you over plant or otherwise find yourself with large amounts of vegetables 'ready to go' and no time to process them don't forget about your local foodbank.

 

[Fishmansdad]

I have a couple of questions in regards to getting my garden ready for next spring. I have designated a garden on my land with the approximate dimensions of 120 ' x 100 ' with the potential to enlarge it more if I wanted. I had a neighbor plow it last spring with his farm tractor with the idea I would then till it and work it. Heart surgery got in the way of that so the garden was put on hold for another year. I am starting to plan again now for next year. I will be erecting an 8' or 9' fence around the garden because of problematic deer.

I either want to purchase a really good tiller or put the money I would have put in the tiller in raised beds. I am 58 years old and I don't know how my back will hold up over the years bending over gardening. I had some thoughts that if I didn't go the raised bed gardening route, I could make the rows far enough apart so that I could take a rear tine tiller and cultivate between the rows making weeding less tedious. With raised beds, I could sit on an edge or rail of the raised beds and therefore be less taxing on my back. Mulching would also help.

In regards to tillers, the only tiller I ever saw that looks like it would hold up would be the old professional Troy Bilt tiller that was mostly cast iron, but they don't make that tiller in that quality anymore. The BCS is really nice, but is 3k-4k. I could buy a three point tiller for that price for my Kubota L4400 tractor but wouldn't have enough room to turn around in the garden or till between rows after the garden started coming up. I originally thought the Husqvarna DRT900 was a great tiller for the money, but some reviewers that purchased it called it cheap.

Any thoughts you had regarding whether to invest in a nice tiller or go the raised bed route would be appreciated.

I admire your ambition for a big garden. I have about the same size garden as you are planning. I break it with a 6 ft tractor mounted tiller. Maintenance is accomplished with an old 3 hp B&S powered front tine that I bought it new at TSC for a song, at least compared to alternatives. It sets out under a laundry tub, sort of maintenance by benign neglect, and starts right up when needed. The narrow width allows reasonable spacing of rows which I maintain wide enough to use a bucket seat for picking or crawling along for detailed weeding or planting. You can anticipate that your fence will create a situation where large tractor work is difficult or impossible to accomplish unless the fence can be easily dismounted. Consider a solar powered electric fence for an economical alternative and investigate other means for keeping deer at bay. BTW, venison is a tasty alternative to beef. I have considered raised beds, but the cost and labor of installation is a barrier. You might start small in one corner. I suspect that a fully implemented and managed raised bed garden would allow you to garden in a much smaller space. A small tiller would be all you would need. In small spaces, mulch will obviate the need for weeding.

 

[Western]

Don't know if this is in line with your ideas or future program (farmagedden) But if you are going to have a few fruit trees, I would start looking into that soon so you can and design your garden around them. We planted about 12 this year at the new garden site and had to design around them for the amount of sun they require each day. BTW, after allot of reading on the net and talking to our AG agent, we went with all Semi-dwarf stock.

Another idea as an "as-side". Consider a couple of bee hives. We are and it isn't to complicated. We had about 40 hives when I was a kid and after school we worked in my grandfathers shop, building hives that he sold. You would be surprised how much more efficient your garden and trees produce with your own supply of bees, Not to mention the honey with it's essential vitamins.

You can buy Bumble bees, they are much better at pollination than bees, but they need replaced each year.

 

[corl]

Deer fencing for a vegetable garden is an always popular discussion subject. If the fence is moved out on the ends of the garden then there is enough room for you to turn your tractor for tilling etc. Don't know where you live or your deer population but in SE Pa we have a large deer herd and fencing to protect corn and other veggies is important. For the last 3 years I have found an easy way to fence deer that is low cost and very effective, at least for me. For the little animals I use 2 strands of electric fence at 5 and 11 inches off the ground. The tractor can run over these without moving them or hurting them. For the deer I use 20 lb test monofiliment fishing line strung at 2.5 feet, 4 feet and maybe another strand at 5 feet. When first put up the deer may destroy it for the first week but when they know its there and then they leave it alone and don't get into the garden. Yes it is hard to believe but it works. The theory is that they don't see it and when they bump against it they look up to see how high they have to jump but don't get any idea so they leave. Initially they may get tangled up in it but that scares them and they leave it alone. My neighbor's horse got out and got tangled it it and that horse will never come back.

It makes it easy to do every other row planting, saves money on fencing and helps keep labor low in the garden. The mono is stretched like an electric fence and can be detached to let the tractor and lawn mower enter the garden area. You can just barely see the fencing in "About Us" on the website with every other row planting. Nunamaker Farms - Nunamaker Farms in West Grove, Pennsylvania - Home