Rock removal

[Jstpssng]

No-till all the way. Try it and you'll never go back.

The only problem with that is, I try to avoid chemicals. Although I do use 10-10-10, I have only used RoundUp once, and had most of the gallon left that I gave away.

 

[Creamer]

The only problem with that is, I try to avoid chemicals. Although I do use 10-10-10, I have only used RoundUp once, and had most of the gallon left that I gave away.

Good - you can no-till and no chemical. I do.

 

[GirlWhoWantsTractor]

Good - you can no-till and no chemical. I do.

Yep, for sure!

 

[N2DFire]

Fellow Rock farmers I feel your pain.

I had a roughly half acre patch that was dozer cleared several years ago and the stump holes had settled enough that it made for some pretty bumpy mowing so about 3 years ago I worked it over pretty good with a 7 tine (5') harrow (never heard this thing called anything but a tiller till I came to TBN), followed that up with a disk to break everything up, borroed a landscape rake & worked it over pretty good, and finally used a homemade drag (from old phone poles) to smooth everything over. Then I sewed the entire area back with a grass / clover mixture for deer plots and life was grand . . .

Till it rained . . .

Hard . . .

Every day . . .

For a week . . .

And washed every bit of seed & loose earth away back down to the dry red clay.

I have spent the last three years letting that patch go fallow on it's own trying to reclaim it.

Last month I spent 2 weekends (only half days - I'm fat & lazy) picking up rocks & sticks so I can bush hog it this year. My rule was anything big enough I wouldn't want to kick it, then pick it up.

I moved 4 loader buckets like this one in the first shot (note the blue ribbon prize winner in the front left) all picked up by hand.

And 3 trailer loads of limbs. sticks, roots, and branches like the second shot.
3/4 was hand loaded (the rest I did manage to get with the grapple) and all hand unloaded. (Which reminds me, I REALLY want a dump trailer)


I am loving all the tidbits about the use of organic matter & the "no til" concept and am already contemplating some things to try on the remaining portion of this mess that's still not growing anything (except more rocks).


So back to the OP
I have used a root grapple, landscape rakes, floating the box blade, and several other tricks to get up rock faster & easier over the years (and I'm the 3rd generation "rock picker" on this land). My advice is get yourself a "Mulch Fork" with a long handle and use that to pick up the rock so you don't have to bend over as far/much. Aside from that, there just isn't an easy way to do it.

 

[Jstpssng]

Good - you can no-till and no chemical. I do.

Yep, for sure!

What I always interpreted no till was planting ground cover, mowing it, killing with RoundUp, and planting the crop with a seed drill. To do it the way that you folks suggest would require 111 yards of compost for my existing garden, to cover it 6" deep. I have to drive at least 30 miles to get that volume, and hauling it in my little pickup one yard at a time just isn't feasible.
I am planting my squash in last year's pig pen, hopefully they will thrive there.

 

[52wej]

N2, I am about 50 miles east of you and know exactly what you are dealing with. Red dirt + hard rain= ground on which nothing but weeds and gullies will grow. Even if you had a good cover of straw it would have been hard to keep that from washing down the hill. About the only thing that will stay put is the erosion matting and that is so expensive.

I do have a dump trailer, but the main difficulty is still making the rocks and limbs go from the ground into it. A grapple is good (I have one) but it does not do everything as you accurately noted.

You have probably noticed that when you are bushogging you will build up a lot of chaff and seed on it on the cutter. At the end of the day, drive over to your red ground and take a leaf blower and blow off all of the chaff on to the ground. I guarantee that within six week s if you get any rain at all you will get a nice green cover. Of course it will all be weeds, but any vegetative cover is better than none. . Good Luck. W. Jones

 

[MidTn Mark]

Make some friends with local tree services. Tell them you will take all the chipped wood they've got. Spread it out and keep adding to it. If you want put cardboard down first. It will help withvweed suppression.

Give it a bit and plant in to it. Keep doing that and in a year or so you will have nice loamy soil.

 

[Jstpssng]

Make some friends with local tree services. Tell them you will take all the chipped wood they've got. Spread it out and keep adding to it. If you want put cardboard down first. It will help withvweed suppression.

Give it a bit and plant in to it. Keep doing that and in a year or so you will have nice loamy soil.

A year? You're rather optimistic. I think that I will keep planting in the ground.

 

[Creamer]

What I always interpreted no till was planting ground cover, mowing it, killing with RoundUp, and planting the crop with a seed drill. To do it the way that you folks suggest would require 111 yards of compost for my existing garden, to cover it 6" deep. I have to drive at least 30 miles to get that volume, and hauling it in my little pickup one yard at a time just isn't feasible.
I am planting my squash in last year's pig pen, hopefully they will thrive there.

You can either plant ground cover like a clover and plant right into it or use mulch. I prefer seed free hay or straw for mulch as it will break down quicker. Until you get the system going though you will need to add a little nitrogen or the break down of the organic matter will retain the nitrogen and it will not be available for your plants. Nitrogen can be either chemical or from manure.

 

[BrokenTrack]

I clear a lot of land, so I built a rock and root rake to help window rocks and sticks. I just built it, and so far my only test has been removing sticks from an existing hay field that logging messed up with scattered limbs everywhere. It worked well for that, but I see no reason why it would not work well for plowed ground and rocks too.

 

[BrokenTrack]

I know the original Poster has limited tools, but one method I use that limits rock picking (the worst job there is on a farm except maybe grabbing retained afterbirth inside a dairy cow), is to deep plow with a turning plow, then dragging the surface smooth with a log. Dragging the widest, biggest log the tractor can tow works best because it makes for a smoother area because the log spans such a wider area, cutting off hills here and filling depressions there.

The roundness of the log works well because it presses the rocks into the soft soil instead of popping them up like a disc harrow. The bigger rocks have to be picked of course, but it is a lot less of them. The key is deep tilling to give a place for the rocks to go. I was told frost action would just push the rocks back up, but this has not been my experience at all with fields reseeded for hayfields and pastures. The sod helps hold them down.

Note: I am using a skidder here, but it was a big long log. Just scale the log back to the size tractor you have.

 

[N2DFire]

N2, I am about 50 miles east of you and know exactly what you are dealing with. Red dirt + hard rain= ground on which nothing but weeds and gullies will grow. Even if you had a good cover of straw it would have been hard to keep that from washing down the hill. About the only thing that will stay put is the erosion matting and that is so expensive.

I do have a dump trailer, but the main difficulty is still making the rocks and limbs go from the ground into it. A grapple is good (I have one) but it does not do everything as you accurately noted.

You have probably noticed that when you are bushogging you will build up a lot of chaff and seed on it on the cutter. At the end of the day, drive over to your red ground and take a leaf blower and blow off all of the chaff on to the ground. I guarantee that within six week s if you get any rain at all you will get a nice green cover. Of course it will all be weeds, but any vegetative cover is better than none. . Good Luck. W. Jones

That is definitely a good idea to get something started and I am going to have about 12 acres to mow around August when everything "tops out" and goes to seed so I should have plenty.

We don't keep cows of our own anymore but are loaning the pasture land to some family and in the winter they feed round bales without a ring/feeder so once the cows eat it down so far, they start stepping in it & crapping on it and don't eat anymore - which leaves several large mounds of grass killing hay rot all over our fields. I usually take the landscape rake & grapple to clean it up & pile it on the burn piles. I'm toying with the idea of seeing how much of that I can pick out and cover over the dirt areas and then possibly even use a disk harrow (set straight) to try to cut/mulch it up some.

 

[GirlWhoWantsTractor]

I know the original Poster has limited tools, but one method I use that limits rock picking (the worst job there is on a farm except maybe grabbing retained afterbirth inside a dairy cow), is to deep plow with a turning plow, then dragging the surface smooth with a log. Dragging the widest, biggest log the tractor can tow works best because it makes for a smoother area because the log spans such a wider area, cutting off hills here and filling depressions there.

The roundness of the log works well because it presses the rocks into the soft soil instead of popping them up like a disc harrow. The bigger rocks have to be picked of course, but it is a lot less of them. The key is deep tilling to give a place for the rocks to go. I was told frost action would just push the rocks back up, but this has not been my experience at all with fields reseeded for hayfields and pastures. The sod helps hold them down.

Note: I am using a skidder here, but it was a big long log. Just scale the log back to the size tractor you have.

OP is putting in a garden, not a pasture.....

 

[Bronco82]

And if not obvious.....I have no idea what I'm doing....

Sorry, I am of no help as I am just learning myself too, I just love the honesty.

 

[Oldoak]

OP is putting in a garden, not a pasture.....

But it gives some of us who may be contemplating rejuvenating old pasture fields or just putting in large food plots for the wildlife helpful ideas.

There are very few topics on this forum, or any forum for that matter, that don't stray a bit from the original question or comment.

 

[jdom84]

My ground is rocks with just a bit of dirt... why they call it the rocky mountains i guess! It doesn't make for the best gardens and I've tried to rake them after tilling but that doesn't work. I have resorted to tilling and sifting through a grizzly and then bringing in manure to replace the lost volume .

Anyone know where to get hands on an attachment like this in the USA? Looks like a tiller but buries the rocks.
ENFOUISSEUR EPIERREUR MASSANO RSE 3 euroagrimat.fr - YouTube
Massano, interratrice rotostone al lavoro - YouTube

 

[GirlWhoWantsTractor]

My ground is rocks with just a bit of dirt... why they call it the rocky mountains i guess! It doesn't make for the best gardens and I've tried to rake them after tilling but that doesn't work. I have resorted to tilling and sifting through a grizzly and then bringing in manure to replace the lost volume .

Anyone know where to get hands on an attachment like this in the USA? Looks like a tiller but buries the rocks.
ENFOUISSEUR EPIERREUR MASSANO RSE 3 euroagrimat.fr - YouTube
Massano, interratrice rotostone al lavoro - YouTube

The trouble is (unless you have thick sod on top, like in a pasture) the rocks won't stay buried because of freeze/thaw.

So much easier to just start piling on organic material and forget plowing and tilling.

Our mountain "soil" is also rocks held together with a little red clay. After a couple of years of very little work, just dumping on more material, my garden plot has over a foot of rich, dark brown soil, and earthworms galore. This sits on top of the existing soil, I never attempted to work it in, or plow it under. In fall it gets another thick layer of shredded autumn leaves. In spring, scrape it off to the side, into a pile to finish composting, and plant. Simple/easy.

 

[CMV]

So now I have a 3' high berm where I've been pushing top layer to one side trying to push rocks. Lots of rocks, but also lots of good dirt in there too. Can I rent a rock bucket somewhere like Hertz or Sunbelt? Sifting through all that would give me tons of large rocks I could use in erosion areas and then a big pile of clean dirt. $800-$1000 for the cheapest 72" I can find online - don't want one that bad.... But use of one for a weekend or so would be nice.

 

[pycoed]

OK - if you are up for a challenge, try this for size:-
Italian landslide: Huge boulders destroy buildings in South Tyrol - YouTube

 

[Jstpssng]

So now I have a 3' high berm where I've been pushing top layer to one side trying to push rocks. Lots of rocks, but also lots of good dirt in there too. Can I rent a rock bucket somewhere like Hertz or Sunbelt? Sifting through all that would give me tons of large rocks I could use in erosion areas and then a big pile of clean dirt. $800-$1000 for the cheapest 72" I can find online - don't want one that bad.... But use of one for a weekend or so would be nice.

You're closer to winning the battle then you may think. Now you can make a grizzly... a screen that's higher on one end so that as you dump your material the soil falls through, while the rocks roll down the front of the screen. This link Portable Soil, Topsoil, Rock and Gravel Screeners is for demonstration purposes.