York Rakes

[JimTaylor]

Hi Guys,

Looking for advice on rock removal. I have been preparing a 150'x50' garden area, and have BB'd all the big rocks out (gotta love New England soil). I've also hand raked a lot of the smaller stuff out. A couple of days ago I tilled the plot, and found that I had missed a lot of softball sized stuff (was happy to only find one large rock). Now I find that I have moved a lot of new rocks into the first 5" of soil.

I hate to drop another 1K on a new implement.....and I also have a hard time believing that a landscape rake will solve my problem, but is this the best way to work on the masses of new rock harvest I am finding???

I have been using a fine tine pitch fork to remove these by hand, but that is a long slow slog of a job. Exercise is great, but there are limits to the enjoyment factor /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

The pitch fork actually works quite well, is there anything like this that could attach to the FEL? Maybe it would attach like some of the pallet forks do.... I can dip the tines into the earth, drive forward, and then curl the rocks into the bucket as they fill up the tines.

Many Thanks,

Jim

 

[seapea]

There are FEL buckets that will sift out the rocks. I've never used one, but ran across them at http://www.duragrade.com/. If you're lucky, your local rental comany might have somthing similar. Otherwise, it's till, rake, till, rake, till, rake....

 

[JimTaylor]

till, rake, till, rake....gotta be quicker.

The rock buckets seem like overkill at this point though. I am looking to weed out the 1.5-5" rocks that seem to be everywhere under the soil.

Anyone ever seen an attachment for the backhoe bucket for rock sifting? Seems like this would work well, like a catchers mit attached to the existing bucket which allows you to sift through the loose, tilled, dirt. Could just be, easy-on easy-off, teeth extenders for the bucket.

Any welders interested in a job? /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[kingoflawns]

I have a landpride 1560 with factory gauge wheels. We use it for rough grading unscreened loam & subsoil. It also doe's a fantastic finish rake on screened loam with the gauge wheels on the highest setting, the rake locked in the straight position,in reverse. The tractor in reverse not the rake. The gauge wheels are the magic, without them it's constant 3 point adjustments. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif