Tilling with a back hoe

Gary Fowler · May 4, 2014

I am trying to put in a new garden spot previously just pasture grass. I have disked it , tilled it, used cultivators, and finally resorted to scarifiers on box blade trying to get up the rocks. Each piece of equipment would turn up a few small rocks. The cultivators went the deepest and turned up some rock but broke bolts in the mounts everytime it hit a large one. Finally I thought the box blade would hole together. I made one pass about 100 feet on each leg and broke two scarifiers. Got to do some welding on those for an hour or so then back to the rock pit. The welds held up and this time I decided to go across the run and it worked pretty good uprooting about a RTV box load but one area had a rock I couldn't move so I got the Kubota B26 and used the hoe. Well one rock lead to another and another until out of a spot about 8 feet in diameter, I got 2 FEL loads of rocks plus about a half load in the RTV. After moving all those, some of which I had to use the backhoe with thumb to lift, my back was a bit sore and I called it a day and hit the Tylenol bottle.
This morning I went at it again. I started dragging the box blade but saw that I was hitting more rocks in the same area as yesterday. I went back for the TLB and it was a repeat from yesterday. I pulled out at least 2 more FEL loads of rocks from one spot about 6 feet x 10 feet. I decided then that I would till the rest of the garden spot with the back hoe, digging, remove the rocks and level up. So far today I have done about half of it with only a smattering of rocks on the rest of it and very scattered. The back hoe does a good job of turning the soil over for sure, deeper than a plow would have gone. I may have missed a few small ones but I got the large stuff that was banging up my tiller. Next fall I am going to do my other garden spot the same way.

Ed of all trades · May 4, 2014

I have often thought a hoe with a frost pick would do well in a garden. Trouble is I don't have a hoe. used to run one at work.

oldballs · May 4, 2014

Looks like your harvest of rocks is pretty good. What else you gonna grow? They say that a lot of Irish came over here due to the potato famine. But I'll bet they just got tired of picking up rocks. No backhoe here but my back gets tired from hand hoeing in the garden. My potatoes are looking good but need some rain after applying some 0-45-0 superphosphate.

Cheers,
Mike

Gary Fowler · May 4, 2014

I just came inside from loading the piles of rocks that I got out this morning with the back hoe. Several are too big to lift by hand so tomorrow I will go back with the hoe and load them into my RTV. I have fill up a couple of washed area and now I am lining the pond dam where it overflows when the overflow drain is overloaded. If I can get about a week of no rain I might be able to get in behind the dam with my TLB and clean up some of the ruts I made putting some dirt on the wash out last flood we had.

As an aside: Man summer hit hard when it hit. It was 89F at 5pm today. I sweated down so bad yesterday that I had leg cramps last night. I took it a little easier today and tried to drink more water.

deerseeker001 · May 4, 2014

ease into it slowly Gary,don't over do it.

Gary Fowler · May 4, 2014

deerseeker001 said:
ease into it slowly Gary,don't over do it.

Now you tell me. I was trying to get everything ready to plant tomorrow which by the zodiac sign is supposed to be good, but looks like it is now May 11-12 for next good day for corn. I have a couple more mornings of work, it is too darned hot to work past noon.

Gary Fowler · May 6, 2014

Yesterday I tilled several passes in the new garden, kept turning up small to medium sized rocks. Finally decided this was going to be a long term investment and got my seed corn out and planted 3 long rows of Peaches and Cream sweet corn. Went to the other garden and planted my okra. I had already put out tomatoes, 2 green peppers and a 4 Habaneros. Hopefully the Habaneros will make lots of peppers this year because the wife is just about out of her homemade hot sauce. Last year the pepper plants were barren completely. This year, I planted according to the zodiac signs which yesterday was supposed to be a good day for corn and okra. We'll see how that ole moon works out for us this year.