Subsoiler adventure

[GPintheMitten]

I'm glad you're having success and fun working the garden. I enjoy your sailing metaphors. I take it your a sailor, not a power boater, right?

 

[daugen]

I'm tired, I'm sore, and I'm smiling. All good. Sorry, I've only been a powerboater, though I love being on other people's sailboats as long as they are large enough, aren't becalmed, and have a comfortable seat. My wife and I had an old, classic Bertram 46 motoryacht, twin DD 8V71TI's, and the genuine hole in the water in which I threw money. And loved it. We drove it to south Florida, took it over to the Abacos all by ourselves, and lived aboard down there for three years. And got really homesick for PA. Brought the boat home and sold it. South Florida is a very different world. I can't imagine farming down there in the summer without a/c; the combo of heat and humidity just sucks the energy out of you.

When I bought the boat, diesel was 73 cents a gallon. But with fuel prices now, I was priced out of the sport. But we kept our 16 Scout and trailer that to various lakes in the summer, usually trying to rent a house on the shore with a dock. I find the water wonderfully relaxing and can't wait to get back on it. Except when I got caught out in that little boat in 3 to 4 footers outside of St. Michaels, on the Chesapeake, and got the crap kicked out of me. Which is what I was chuckling about as I went up and down over the plow lumps today. And when I got stuck, well, like a boat too...

 

[daugen]

I got home today covered in dirt from head to toe, sunburned, and delighted that the DR rototiller and Gravely combination handled the rocks. At one point I looked down and there were about five or six rocks every square foot. Cart after cart of rocks picked up the hard way and the ground can be further rototilled and is becoming more friable.

I went further on one part of the garden just to give myself a break from the big rocks and of course wound up with endless small ones to pick up. Would a York Rake be a good tool to drag through the garden in the future to pick up rocks, or at least deposit them on one end? My brother in law and I looked at each other after picking rocks for an hour and wondered if we should star in a Cool Hand Luke movie, down on our hands and knees in the dirt, picking rocks.
So I have no problem justifying another implement to help out here. Suggestions please. I'm too old to do all this bending over, and I'm sure there are many, many more rocks that will come up. Thanks.

 

[rambler]

I learned to drive tractor when I was 7 here on the farm, and dad put me on the plow tractor when I was 8, been plowing many years.

I went along rock picking when I was 6 or so, haven't found the end of the rocks yet, got a pile about the size of a garage now, still going. Dad sold the first pile of rocks to the State for rip-rap on a bridge over the river into town.

Anyhow.

You do need to fiddle a 'bit' with the adjustment on your plow. Looks like you got it plowed, but that sure isn't anything close to the angle the plow should have. You need to make the toplink much longer. The plow landside (the vertical piece that slides on the ground behind the point) should be level, front to back, not pitched up out of the ground behind the bottom.

Or another way, the side shot of the plow in the dirt, the plow frame should be about level. In your picture, you have the frame angled up behind you - quite a bit! Once you get that set right, the plow will suck into the ground and put weight on the rear wheels, and you will not have so much trouble with traction.

You are kinda using it as a V-ripper trenching tool, not so much a plow. But again, looks like it worked out for you, so the results are there. You got a bare patch of ground, and had fun doing it. How you got there isn't so important.

I think a lot of your troubles come from that 'sort of' cat 1 3pt hitch your tractor has - it is set up to fit cat 1 implements, but has shorter arms than a 'real' cat 1 hitch. This makes it real hard to set up so it's right when you are using it, and able to transport it because it doesn't have the same arc as a 'real' cat 1 hitch. Not knocking the tractor, looks like a good one (once you fix that severe toe-in...) but just the nature of those types of smaller than standard cat 1 hitches.

--->Paul

 

[daugen]

Paul, yeah, I just plowed with it all the way up because that's what worked best for the prior implement. I may run it one more time tomorrow, still pretty bumpy out there for what's left, and I'll drop the link down like you suggest. The side to side height is clearly off, weird, wasn't when I started...need to adjust those links too.

I got it done, ugly, but done. Now rototill it about ten more times to bust all those lumps down, and get some seed in the soil. First day of Spring feels like first day of Summer around here, I think everyone is scrambling to get going.
Drew

 

[daugen]

Paul,
ok, this time I dropped the top link down a full inch and boy what an improvement. The dirt rolled off better, didn't dig in quite so deeply, but plenty deep to stop the tractor. As soon as I saw the dirt roll off the share like a wave, I knew things were better.
Making progress on the garden. Had my best assistant today helping me and delighted she could make it into the garden. Oh Lordy what a lot of rocks.
This pic is after a full truckload was taken away by a friend. I told him to bring a bigger truck!

Is there a three point hitch attachment, or more likely a FEL one, that will pick up rocks this size without me bending over 8 million times? Will a rear rake work or will it pull a huge amount of dirt with it? Gotta be an easier way, this is too hard for an old fart. THanks. Drew

 

[whirly]

...
Is there a three point hitch attachment, or more likely a FEL one, that will pick up rocks this size without me bending over 8 million times? Will a rear rake work or will it pull a huge amount of dirt with it? Gotta be an easier way, this is too hard for an old fart. THanks. Drew

Kids ... come in all sizes for all size rocks and the cost varies with size:thumbsup:

 

[Rob-D]

As for rocks, the ploy pipe is fairly forgiving but not bomb proof. With this setup if you have to lay another pipe to replace a broken one it doesn't leave much of a mark on the lawn. Just drive over the slit to push it back down and in a week you won't know it was there.


I typically make one pass w/o the pipe to clear the path of big rocks etc and to ease the next pass when I actually put the pipe in the ground.

Great idea to lay pipe!
Thanks
Rob

 

[Rob-D]

Kids ... come in all sizes for all size rocks and the cost varies with size:thumbsup:

I've been going back and forth with this and did a lot of informative reading on TBN.

Last year i bedded my garden with a single plow according to Ted's videos on Everything Attachments. This spring I tried my 6' landscape rake after tilling thinking I would get most of the rocks.

No offense to Ted and EA but those guys don't have rocks down there, they plow virgin soil and there isn't a rock! Every year we get more rocks in the garden (it's a scientific fact that rocks grow over the winter) and every year we have to hand pick them. As Nancy says, "two rocks for every dirt!"

Well anyway when I used the landscape rake it just took off the soil with the rocks. If I raised the rake it just skimmed the surface and all the rocks underneath the ground came up on the next pass of the tiller. And, by the way, these rocks are killing my tiller. It's not breaking but if this keeps up I'll be changing tines before long.

I'm going to get a rock bucket, they aren't perfect but I'm not going to pick rocks every year and beat up my tiller in the process so while I can't afford a Harley Rake (the way to go) the rock bucket will do the job, a little slowly but I'm not in the landscape business, I just want a nice garden plot.
Also at the end of this season, I'm going to plow the garden but I'm also going to till it so it's nice and flat and hard in the spring which should make it easier to see, find and pick up the rocks with my rock bucket and landscape rake.

Rob

 

[Smallplot]

Update: County Line single bottom plow worked very well, cut through the sod and clay easily, though the tractor had nowhere enough traction for this. Sure now understand the benefits of MFWD. I spent half my time with the diff lock pushed down, and I wondered if constant use of that, not slipping it, but fully engaged, heats up anything. Boy did it work. Had to do much of the deep plowing going downhill since uphill was just too hard on me and the tractor due to lack of grip. Even with my big ag tires, I've only got 2000 pounds to work with.

Nice plow, a friend picked it up for me because he was closer to TSC, and they took fifty bucks off because it had been sitting out awhile, and had some rust spots on it. Ok, that's fair. Built very strong, my 25hp tractor isn't going to stress it, but I noticed the whole apparatus was cockeyed when I put the tractor away. The links weren't that out of wack before, maybe something moved. Very pleased with the plow's performance even when I'm sure I didn't have it adjusted very well. Did the job, turned everything over and I'm ready for the rototiller. I suppose I could disc it, but because the soil is still moist and sure clayey, I think the less I drive on it with the tractor the better, and will use the much lighter garden tractor from now on.
p.s the head on shot of my 255 shows some messed up steering angles...headed to the repair shop for some new knuckles, I could see something moving that sure shouldn't have been, plus the one tire turned in significantly more than the other. Likely PO ran into something and bent the steering rod, but maybe enough adjustment in there to help plus a few parts. The turf tires are worse than useless in wet clay, geez slid all over the place once they became solid mudballs, and the lack of weight on the front made steering almost impossible at times. Kept veering off to the right, and being a boater, I know my rudder was pushing me that way... I have a 300 pound custom weight box I built for my Gravely; don't know if 300-400 pounds would help over the front tires, but since it steers so easily, I'm going to find out. I had to use the diff lock, i had to use the brakes for steering, I was pumping away on whatever worked. And boy am I sore now. Good sore.

Looking at your pictures I have a couple of questions. Just by looking at your picture, the top link looks way short. This can just be the picture but figured I would ask. When you set the plow down is the bottom cutting shear tip on the ground with the rear about 1 inch off the ground? How deep of a furrow were you leaving?

Looking at the head on photo. What exactly are you plowing right there? I know you have a logical explanation but, when you plow your right side tires should be down in the furrow made by the last pass. Tractor, except for right side tires, should not touch any plowed ground. This is why plows are usually set up to look lop sided when attached to the tractor. To get the plow to make a level cut it needs to sit unlevel, side to side, on the tractor.

If you are trying to drive on plowed ground, as it appeared from the photo, you will not have any traction and a ride that will make a bull rider jealous. :laughing:

Sorry just saw where Rambler went over most of this. My bad.

 

[tracroll]

Cant quite make out from your pictures how your mounting is, but if the subsoiler is pulling out of the ground I'd think you dont have the a frame quite upright. It should be set 90 degrees to the ground, so the tine is pulling itself in and only the tractor hydraulics prevent it going right down. To use it for pipe laying you need an attachment that you attach to the bottom of the tine and then connect the pipe to this. As you pull through the ground the pipe folows the tine and when you get to where you want to go you disconnect it. Hope this helps?

 

[daugen]

my first attempt at using the one bottom was pretty sad and the first pass on that rocky soil was challenging to say the least. No way I could hold a straight line, I was veering off to the right like a drunken sailor. As I have admitted, not pretty at all. BUT, my final pass, with the top link dropped, worked much better and quickly showed me what I was doing wrong. Dense wet clay full of stones, probably not an ideal training ground for me.

Even with the ag tires, it was clear to me I needed a tractor heavier than what I have to do what I was doing with any success. And certainly to plow a straight line...Several times the front of the tractor went at least a foot in the air when I hooked a rock, so I was just trying to get it done as safely as I could, and it was hard going, really hard going. So yeah, my plowing style was pretty awful here. But next year....

I've looked at a bunch of plow day videos on YouTube and reminded myself what it was supposed to look like, all those nice furrows laid aside with precision, like sliced roast beef. My garden looked like a B52 pavebombed it...no I sure don't get any style points here. I did a lot better when I was plowing at 12 years old...

I have a fair sense of humor and humility, and usually don't mind people telling me what a dufus I am. I took some video of the ripping and plowing that I will try to upload. All constructive comments and sharp eyes appreciated.

 

[wirfeld1]

Kids ... come in all sizes for all size rocks and the cost varies with size:thumbsup:

KIDS. My favorite rock picking tools as well!:laughing:

 

[daugen]

Kids. You bet. At one point today, after picking up my zillionth rock, I would have paid a princely sum to some kid for every chunk of that granite picked up. But sadly, no kids to be had.

never had any kids so I don't have grandkids to pay exorbitant amounts of money to quite willingly. I live in Bucks County PA in suburbia and do my "farming" at a local friend's estate farm. None of the kids in my neighborhood would pick rocks, no way. Most of them don't have to work, which I imagine most of us have done since an early age in one form or another. They are given allowances to perform tasks anyone over 50 years old would have been hollered at if we didn't do automatically. Get paid for taking out the trash? No.

I worked four hours Friday afternoon and evening, 10 hours on Saturday, and at least three on Sunday, to mow and trim our seven acres of lawn, which included an orchard, grape arbor, endless split rail fencing, etc, and this was before weedwackers. Now granted this was 50 years ago, but for a weekend of work I earned 5 dollars. 17 hours for five bucks. And there were days we'd get an extra buck or two if we walked behind the tractor and wagon for hours picking rocks out of the fields. In the sun.

I'm not trying to be melodramatic here, but in my part of this wonderful country, kids don't seem to work very hard or have the need or desire to do so. When I grew up in this area, a third of the kids in my high school were kids of farmers. I bet in some of your areas it's double that. Not any more here, a farmer's kid would be like an astronaut's kid, a rarity... So all those kids raised on farms who understood chores and the need to do real work just aren't around here any more. I'm not trying to write off a generation with a broad brush either; I think this is just a fact of life in suburban areas.

A good friend of mine has headed or assisted a local Boy Scout troop for many years, and long after his son went through the ranks. I joked with him about getting the Troop in, and I'd donate an expensive gift certificate to the local sporting goods store so they could buy new tents or something if they would come out and pick rocks. He chuckled and said that was pretty unlikely.

So no kids for me. Plan B? C?

 

[kaptavin]

I think that piece works like a lever on the shear bolt, magnifying the force if an immovable object is struck and keeping the top link from bending.

I think so also. One of the bolts is smaller, not grade, and looks like it would provide shear protection if the main piece pivoted. btw, the other bolts don't have hash marks on them, but rather just numbers, which I don't remember.
The bolts are pretty heavy, no complaints, but just wondering why grade 5 or 8 bolts weren't used. Is there another way of designating grade bolts by a numbering system?

When I unpacked the box, out fluttered a one inch square Made in China, 10 pcs. piece of paper. So my Kentucky plow has Chinese bolts? Groan.

Probably metric. Here is a comparison:
High Tensile Bolts - DownUnder4x4

 

[daugen]

Probably metric. Here is a comparison: View attachment 305291
High Tensile Bolts - DownUnder4x4

good reading. The writer is clearly pissed at the US intransigence in keeping SAE vs. ISO, and I find the reference to global noncompetitiveness interesting.
I bet the Buicks built by GM in China, a major US car over there, are built on the Metric system.

Metric system (SI). The abbreviation for the metric system is SI, the International System of Units (from the French, Systeme International d'Unites). It evolved from the original French metric system and is currently being used virtually worldwide. Long the language universally used in science and among technically adept individuals, SI has also become the dominant language of international commerce and trade. All new USA standards (ASTM, ANSI, SAE, IEEE, ASME, etc.) are now written in metric, as the lead engineers in these organizations recognize the importance of trying to get the USA on track with technically advanced countries, in an effort to regain lost USA competitiveness in a global economy, as there is essentially no global market for the archaic, oddball, incompatible product dimensions USA arbitrarily comes up with, while they forfeit industries and jobs to third-world countries who have no problem understanding something so simple and fulfilling the need efficiently. IEEE was intelligent enough to recognize this decades ago. Japan also was intelligent enough to recognize simple matters such as this long ago. This small country, defeated in WWII only 60 years ago, has since captured a large portion of the global economy due to their intelligent progress, and consequently has become a major global financier, while USA has become a world-class debtor to the tune of trillions due to inefficient business practices, low educational level, slackerism, and inability to solve or understand even simple problems such as metric conversion.

 

[TheGoose]

As far as I know every GM car I've owned for the last 20 years had all metric bolts. Even my '85 S-10. Sure, you can use SAE sizes, but if you switch to metric you'll notice they fit better.