Poor man's garden hiller

[Coolnorth]

JC,

Sorry, I did not mean to mislead, I referred to my "planning and drawing" in the first reply to Jim, when I was trying to figure out a way to make a hiller. I'll find the drawing and post it if you want.

Hey Steve,

I will be putting the greenhouse together in the next few weeks (after Easter) and getting things ready, including some corn. I am trying to get a fellow in with his forestry harvesting equipment in to clear about 5 acres for 2011. There's over 100 LARGE poplar trees (est. 30 - 50 cords) that are marketable. He's trying to figure out how to scale down and do the job.

Graham

 

[JC-jetro]

JC,

Sorry, I did not mean to mislead, I referred to my "planning and drawing" in the first reply to Jim, when I was trying to figure out a way to make a hiller. I'll find the drawing and post it if you want.

Hey Steve,

I will be putting the greenhouse together in the next few weeks (after Easter) and getting things ready, including some corn. I am trying to get a fellow in with his forestry harvesting equipment in to clear about 5 acres for 2011. There's over 100 LARGE poplar trees (est. 30 - 50 cords) that are marketable. He's trying to figure out how to scale down and do the job.

Graham

Hey Graham,

Thanks for the offer, I get the picture.. I just thought I miss something.


JC,

 

[jinman]

Good looking hiller Jim,

I kind of the same idea to use my cultivator as a structural base. The only source for a disk same as you have was agri supply.

16 DISC HILLER WITH 16SHANK - Agri Supply

JC, Agri-supply is where I bought my disc hillers. I bought the 14" discs and probably should have bought the 16" discs. With the 16s, I could throw up a slightly taller hill. I really like the discs over any kind of fixed plate because the rolling discs seem to need very little effort from the tractor and just roll over any small stones. After several attempts, I think I've found the best depth, angles, and speed for my little garden.

Steve, I could sure easily plant potatoes in these hills. I probably won't this year, but I may do just that next year. I probably don't need hills this wide for potatoes though. Remember that I did say I tilled the ground first with my rototiller. That made the soil really soft and fluffy for an easy job for the hillers.

Graham, I look forward to seeing your illustration if you get a chance to post it. For me, since I don't weld much, it was so easy to buy these discs mounted on shafts that spending time welding something up just didn't make sense, especially since I have the cultivator just sitting around not being used for anything else.

 

[Baby Grand]

JC, This is where I was in my drawings, but I had extravagant amounts of plate welded across the top, sides, etc. Almost like a chute that cut at the bottom and sides, pushing the soil to the middle as the chute would be narrow at the rear, creating the hill.

IIRC, someone on TBN built a similar device a few years ago. He attached it to the back end of his tiller. His photos showed almost perfectly formed, raised, flat topped beds, all done in one pass. I really liked that idea. I suppose you could do similar with a toolbar type of device with disc hillers, etc. Gears meshing ...

-Jim

 

[Coolnorth]

Hey Graham,

Thanks for the offer, I get the picture.. I just thought I miss something.


JC,

JC, Jinman, This is what I was thinking about a while ago. I will be working on a disc type hiller starting tonight. I think I have all my materials and will try to do photos as it goes together.

Graham

 

[Gale Hawkins]

A 100 years ago they were known as "disc" cultivators in these parts so that name may help in a search.

They were reversed to "bar" off tobacco to make it easy to "chop" out then the reversed again to "hill" it back up.

 

[Coolnorth]

Ah! This is the place where informed people sure help out a lot. Thanks for the additional info! What was the reason for "barring out" the tobacco? Is this a method of thinning or harvesting?

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Ah! This is the place where informed people sure help out a lot. Thanks for the additional info! What was the reason for "barring out" the tobacco? Is this a method of thinning or harvesting?

It is the inverse of what you see in the above pictures by pulling the dirt back when the tobacco was maybe only 6-9" tall. There were no chemicals so you had to scrap grass and weeds with a hoe by hand. If only a 12" strip of soil was left there was less to scrap the gound clean and the the 5-6" furrow on either side if the remaining strip of soil was a good place to deposit the over growth of vegetation that would occur in a wet spring.

After you had it all cleaned out and the earth was dryer then you would reverse the disc blades and \do the operation like jinman pictured. This was done for corn also but the concept was not to hoe the corn as as to just kill the grass in the row by dumping fresh dirt on top of the grass and weeds. Corn ridges was more or less the by product of grass and weed control during that generation of farming which lasted for 100's of years. All farming was "organic" farming until about 100 years ago.

Advanced science has given us given us a chemical solution for every problem faced by man today with NO ill side effects.

 

[nobull1]

I have just busted one of my disc on my cub and am trying to upgrade a little as the cub hillers are pretty well beat. I saw this post and was checking out agri-supply disc hillers and found there are two types the Blanton and King types. I wonder if anyone knows about the different types and which might be better?

 

[jinman]

I have just busted one of my disc on my cub and am trying to upgrade a little as the cub hillers are pretty well beat. I saw this post and was checking out agri-supply disc hillers and found there are two types the Blanton and King types. I wonder if anyone knows about the different types and which might be better?

The King types seem to be a bit more expensive and have a 6-bolt bearing ring that attaches to the disc. I guess if you use them a lot, the quality might be an issue, but the Blanton type I have seem very sturdy and work well for my once-per-year application. I don't think I'll ever wear them out.

BTW: Agri-Supply carries repair/replacement parts for both types.