What attachments do I need for a new lawn?

[Neophyte]

I'm building a house on an old cow pasture of about 4 acres and I need some help deciding on attachments to make a nice new lawn. Keep in mind that I will only need these for my lawn and I'm not in the business of making new lawns.

Obviously, the lot is overgrown and needs to be rotary cut. However, what do I need after I rotary cut it? I was on the Land Pride website and saw the following attachments: rotary tiller, core aerator, disc harrows, straw crimper, overseeder, landscape rake, powered rake, primary seeder, scarifier, box blade/scraper, rear blade, soil pulverizer and spreader. Which attachments would I want to use and in what order? Hopefully, not all of them! /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

http://www.landpride.com/lp/index.html

Any and all suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[chrisjbell]

The area close to my house (about an acre) was basically overgrown when I bought the place.

I first 'hogged it to get rid of the nasty tall stuff, then used a tiller to chop up the remains. Next, I made sure that my irrigation was in (we don't get rain here except during the winter), and watered the soil well.

This caused another round of weed seeding, and so I tilled it again after letting it grow out for a couple of weeks (keeping it watered - trying to encourage as many weeds to grow as possible so I could kill 'em before they had a chance to go to seed).

After tilling, I used a box scraper (didn't need the scarifiers - the box was better than a straight blade for evening out the soil) to level it out. Next, I went ahead and seeded as heavily as I could and then rolled it out (with a filled hand roller - at this point I didn't want the tractor to compact my soil any more).

Applied starter fertilizer, watered like crazy for the first few weeks, and then made sure to water deeply about once a week from then on. Turned out pretty well, although the problem that I think we all run into in our "non sanitized" country environments is that weeds spread seeds in notorious ways. But the base lawn is pretty healthy and that keeps most of the worst of the weeds out.

Aerating is something I should definately do. However, the options available for the tractor are either one of those cheapie pluggers you can get from Sears or Harbor Freight for a couple hundred bucks (I'd expect they don't do that great of a job) or a pretty expensive commercial setup. One of these days I'll go rent a powered walk-behind aerator.

It's on the list, really /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif...

 

[Slamfire]

Ypu'll be able to decide after you've been over it with the mower just how rough and weedy it is. A chain harrow will smooth and scarifiy. I doubt you'll need the disc or tiller unless you want 5 acres of manicured lawn, like on a golf course. I prefer a yard, easier to take care of. Just mowing regularly will do a lot to get grass as opposed to weeds. If you decide to reseed, run over the ground with the chain harrow, then get a seed/fertilizer spreader. Let us know what you end up with.

 

[Neophyte]

Slamfire,

What is a chain harrow and where would I find a picture of one? Who makes these?

 

[Slamfire]

Well it looks kind of like a chain link fence, except the wire is very heavy and each junction has a prong that sticks down. Most tractor supply stores have a couple around, pictures are probably available at Tractor Supply or Northern Equipment.

 

[Neophyte]

Slamfire,

Thanks for the information. They had several types of harrows on the Norther website. Which one would be best for what I need? Go with the chain harrow rake or would one of the others be better?

Harrow Rake picture attached.

 

[Neophyte]

Spike Tooth Harrow picture attached.

 

[Neophyte]

5-Bar Spike Tooth Harrow picture attached.

 

[Neophyte]

Spider Rotary Harrow picture attached.

 

[Neophyte]

3-Point Harrow Rake picture attached.