Breaking new garden ground....need advice

My wife and I just bought some acreage located in the Ozark foothills of Arkansas. I have a 53 Ford Jubilee, and we have an area of about 1.5 acres we want to break ground on for a good sized garden. I need advice on how best to break the ground. I have about 6-8 inches of good topsoil, but below that is rocks and clay soil. I thought maybe using a moldboard plow would cut too deep and bring up the rocks. Would a disc harrow or chisel plow be better in this situation? There's very little sod in the area, just a thin layer of spring grasses.
 
Just Disk Harrow it...no need to plow or chisel plow all you will is bring up rocks and more weed
seeds....You can disk it 6 inches deep if you want too, Just watch out that you don't get the
ground so loose that the soil starts to push up in front of the disk, the only place you need to
disk deep is where you will have root crops, other wise 4 to 5 inch should be good. All you do by
disking deeper is to bring up more weed seeds that are laying in the soil.
 
I would use a chisel,field cultivator,or ripper of some some sort to loosen the ground and the area beneath the topsoil to allow water and air into the clay sub soil.Then disk or till for a top finish to plant.Go to the Implement section and check out Mr Howell's Post named 'Poll question' there is a picture of the implement you need.
 
A 12" plow is designed to work 6" deep, a 14" is 7" and a 16" is 8" but you should be able to adjust the 12" to plow 5" deep and a chisel plow is designed for a minimum of 10" deep,Depending on the amount of vegitation a disk or field cultivator might work. But you DO NOT have enough power for a chisel and it would be very hard to find a 7' field cultivator as verry few were ever built. And a drag type disk is what you want and not a 3 point as the drag type you can load to get to cut trash but a 3 point you do not have enough lift power for that. But for a drag type you want an after market swinging drawbar. The factory puts the hitch poinr too far back to turn easily. I had a NAA at 32 max pto hp, a Fergusom TO30 at 29 and have a 42 9N at 24 and the 44 2N 24HP and pulled a 2-12" plow for 50+ years and 7.5' light duty disk. If you could find what Ferguson called a tiller that would do you good. Works simular to a chisel but designed to work at a 6" depth. and you would have enough power to handle one of the 7' size as they were designed for the 9N. Dearborn also made their own version but the ferguson is all I have seen and I have one. They use a 2" point on 6" spacing verses a hisel plow a 12" spacing and 3 or 4" shovel.
 
The unit James Howell has pictured in straw poll is what Ferguson called a Tiller but that name started in 1939 with that unit. I believe his unit is a Pitsburg model as it is newer enough to have a decal on and not the steel plate for identification. I believe new ones can still be bought, just don't know where.
 
They show up at auctions around my area all the time think I have 3 or 4 don't bring much in my area but 100 miles South they sell good,totally different soil type there.
 
"[b:654c4848f0][i:654c4848f0]<font color="#6699ff">Would a disc harrow or chisel plow be better in this situation?[/i:654c4848f0][/b:654c4848f0]</font>"

To prepare for next year's garden, you might consider spraying with Roundup to kill the grass.

We use an implement commonly referred to here on YT as a <a href="http://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cgi-bin/viewit.cgi?bd=implment&th=293920">field cultivator</a> to break up the soil.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GPZqbgI8C2M" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

We then use a disc harrow to break up the large clumps of soil made by the field cultivator.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dinnedI-eYc" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Hope this helps.
 
I lived in the o Ozarks. Was ever so glad to get out and over to NE Okla. The rocks there will eventually come to the surface, same as the weed seeds above them. Whether you bring them up now or later, they WILL come up.
 
Hello neighbor. I live north of you in Missouri the Lake of the Ozarks area. To bad you do not have a Farmall with fast hitch I had a 2 bottom disk plow which is good for this Ozark mountain ground.
 
By the way watch Craig's list the have them all the time. My Local Craig's list has a 3 bottom 3 point disk plow listed in the farm and garden area
 
You could plow 4 to 6 inches deep with a turn plow. but it would have been better to have plowed it last fall so the sod would be rotted.
 

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