Rake Will a landscape rake do it?

[gotrocks]

Hello Folks,
I'm still looking. A while back many of you offered, field cultivators, and various other attachments as suggested ways to accomplish the task described below, again.

I have dug out a large bed and had it filled with 10 cu.yds. of loose ammended soil.

I would like to plant daffodils for my wife and wonder if removing some tines on a landscape rake and leaving them spaced 6-8 inches apart would allow me to plow (scratch), furrows 6 inched deep with one pass over the area to be planted.

I looked at a rake today and I could spring 2 tines together to get a stronger wider bite if needed. (Provided this idea would work)

I don't expect the rake to break up any packed soil just the very loose deep tilled soil in the bed. Just how strong are the tines on a landscape rake?

If it works then back to buy the rake and on to bigger and more beds.

 

[Bob_Skurka]

It will very likely work. At least work well enough to plant daffodiles a few inches under the soil. A landscape rake is obviously not designed to do that, but you said the soil is loose, and the reality is you need some simple trenches to plant the bulbs, a landscape rake should dig the trenches reasonably well in modestly soft soil. The shape of the rake's tines are not designed to turn over soil or even to push it to one side to technically make a furrow, but I would give it a try and I would bet it would work well enough.

 

[R_squared]

Tines that are made out of heat treated spring steel are stronger. Some manufactures offer both, but the heat treated tines are more expensive. Typically, in compacted soil, the furrows are an inch wide and an inch or so deep. In loose soil, you should be able to go down to 6 inches. If your rake is light, weighting it down will help. In this case, a tooth bar on your bucket might work better than a rake. You can get better control of the furrow depth using the tractor hydraulics.

 

[PaulT]

My concern for you is how loose your amended soil is. If it is too loose (like 50-70% topsoil/50-30% peat moss), then the tines will easily glide through it, while the soil closes in behind it. I made a planting bed around my front walkway like this, and it works great to just plant with your hands. If it is more like straight topsoil, then the soil may be sticky enough to hold itself back as the tines dig the furrows. If it is too "sticky". the soil will gather in clumps. Provided that these clumps are less than the spacing of your tines, it should work fine. If the clumps are larger than the spacing of your tines, then the rake will begin to drag all of the soil at the depth the tines are penetrating. This last scenario might occur if you have a lot of clay in the mix, and it gets wet as you are furrowing. Get the rake anyway, as there are a lot of other things you can do with it