Which implements... (for a garden)

I have a field that I'd like to convert a good portion to a decent sized garden.

I have a Jetstar 3 (45 hp).

Tiller - do I get a 6ft wide tiller so it doesn't leave tire tracks?

Plow - what would be a good size for this tractor? 3 bottom 16 inch?

What else should I look for?

Cultivator, Disc, Drag?

Thanks for any info. I'm a beginner and would like some tips.

Patrick

Use Farmall H to plow - 30 min
Use Farmall H to disc - 30 min
Use Farmall Cub to drag - 15 min

Which method is Priceless????
I like my Farmalls!

Keep in mind, when i drive off, it's equivalent to plowing once, and discing it a couple times.

Which one is faster???? What method used more fuel??

You can always "hire me" to do, it so you don't have to invest in a rotavator... :>))

Robert

I have a Farmall 140 with complete set of center and rear mount cultivators, used them once this year. My garden is devided into 3 plots, namely; this years garden, next years garden and last years garden. Last years garden is being fallowed this summer with S tine cultivator and disk. I disk in all my vegetable waste. Next years garden is in buckwheat, that will be plowed down shortly. Sometimes I even double crop that buckwheat in a season. I will disk, cultivate then make rows or beds with my 140. The secret here in this north country is after Sept. 20th, let all weed seeds germinate this fall and if old man winter doesn't get them in time, a little Roundup in my wick weeder will. Next spring I will no till my garden into the rows or beds, that I made in Sept. 05.

Buckwheat has all but replaced my hoe. It is so agressive, it crowds out all weeds. But don't ever let it go to seed, as it will become the worst weed you have. It is a great green manure crop, builds organic matter in your soil. Stay away from todays livestock manures, they are full of weed seeds. ( Feed mills use livestock feed as a market for screenings.)

Ferguson TEA20 tractor with
2 bottom plow 2 hours
6' disk 3 hours
10' drag harrow 1 1/2 hour

rear-tine, 5hp rototiller 10 hours

golf cart hauling water trailer: every day this summer for about ten minutes

This is our first try at a garden, but it's producing excellent produce. My advice is to spent the money on the irrigation equipment and roto-tiller and go low end on the other stuff.

A few years ago after farming most of my life, I moved in next door to an old guy that considered himself an avid vegetable gardener. His tools a hoe and a rear tine roto tiller. He complained to me his garden would no longer produce. From discussion it seemed as though he was doing all the right things fertility, weeding, rotation, tilling. He wondered if plowing may help. He borrowed my Farmall 130 and plowed the garden, then the S tine cultivator to smooth it some so he could get on there with his tiller. Still no production, here I was just across the fence with a great crop of vegetables. He said,"Your the farmer, what am I doing wrong?" I replied, " Too much tillage, you've ground that soil to little more than a dust, much the same properties as cement, thus when it rained, concrete is exactly what you got. Your soil is as hard as a roadway and just about as productive. You come over to my garden, got the same rain as yours, yet you can still dig a hole 6" deep with the toe of your dress shoe." My friend, I've seen so many people do this, they like the nice fine texture and smoothness the roto tiller leaves. Remember, beauty is only skin deep.

I remember once going to a demo day with my dad. This was an area where a major drainage program had reclaimed a lot of land for quite a large number of farmers. This land had a 6" meadow hay sod on it, and plows wouldn't touch it. They had several makes of 3 point tillers and the Howard seemed to be doing the best job of breaking that sod. The recomendation that day was make one maybe two passes with tiller, apply ample supply of nitrogen to break down that sod, seed it to a plow down crop like rye, buckwheat, etc. Their main concern was, do not get the texture of this soil too fine.

Now, getting back to my statment, " Can all those farmers across America that don't have roto tillers be wrong." Of course they are not, it's a matter of economics. Roto tillers are just too expensive way to till soil.

I'm sure you have a point: the part that packed hard this summer is the road through the garden, travelled daily by the golf cart with its trailer hauling 400 pounds of water. About every two weeks I loosened the soil up wherever I could find space to run the tiller. The rest of the weeding was done by hand.

Before planting, to a 2500 sq. ft. area I carried with my loader a dozen scoops of old horse and sheep manure. This organic material may have inhibited compaction a bit as well as adding to soil fertility.

Everything has grown great this first summer. There weren't many weeds, and almost no insect pests. I don't want this to change, so we'll keep use of the tiller to a minimum and look for a spring tooth -- my mother's suggestion. To try to prevent pests I remove the plants from the area as soon as they have finished bearing.

For a one family garden you don't need that much stuff. I'd skip the tiller, you could rent one every spring and fall and never come close to the cost of owning one. A plow, disc, and cultivator would be plenty. If you feel the need to use a tiller, skip the disc and rent a tiller after plowing.

I agree, a garden tiller can be fragile, but if a Howard rotavator is bought and sized properly for the tractor, you will not break it, and it "will" go full depth without problems. In fact, a Howard and a spring tooth drag (harrow) is all the garden tool anyone will need to own to break up any kind of sod and have a smooth seed bed. (of course with a tractor out front)

I do this all the time on a comercial basis, so i'm speaking from experience. In fact, this week i just finished two 20 acre fields for a customer. One had been in orchard for over 60 years, and had never been worked up with a tractor before and was "full" of rocks!! The other was an over grown 30 year old pasture with over 10' tall thorney bushes in it.

The secret is to learn how to set the rotavator up to get the job you want.

Here's the "before" picture

Robert

Here's why you see so many varied rateings for tillers.

All tillers are NOT the same, some only have 4 tines per flange, others have 6. Then there's the fact that field tillers have bigger thicker tines, and many cheapo tillers don't go 8 to 9 inches deep like Howard field tillers do. Then there's the tine speed. Cheapo tillers have one speed, field tillers have 4 or more speeds. You can open the gearbox right in the field (as shown in the pict.) without tools, and change the gears around that are stored in there, so you can match the tine speed to the tilllage you want. There's a lip on the bottom of the gear box to hold the oil in so you don't loose any of it when opening the box.

Now, put that all together, 6 tines per flange, going 8+ inches deep and turn the tine speed up, and you need some "horses"!!!

Howard Rotavators (field tillers) have all the "good stuff" and need decent hp because of it. Of course Howard also does make some smaller tillers for low hp tractors for garden use too.

A 7 foot field tiller needs 60 PTO hp to run it in "easy to moderate" conditions, but 70 is a lot better and to get the most out of it in all conditions 80 is what i'd want. I run my 80" HR30 with 60 PTO hp, and there are times that i wish i had more.

I match my tools to my tractors so i'm useing no more that 80% of the max PTO hp for continous use..

BTW, many of the Howards will "offset" so you are covering the tire tracks on that side as you go around. That way you can put a narrower tiller on a wider tractor.

Robert

Rotary cut, rotavated twice, and spring tooth harrowed.