Gardening with a tractor

I have the following: IH 140, plow, disk harrow, cole duplex planter with over 40 different type plates, fowler corn cultivator, weeder rake, mower and all of the IH cultivator attachements (both front and rear).

What are some methods that offer the best results. I can have any size garned I want, upto 3.5 acres. Don't plan on that much, just wondering what methods to use.

I will use the plow and disk to prepare the soil, just wondering if it is best to make some type of raised beds the tractor can stradel and use the planter to plant, or just use like a large scale vegetable farm.

Also, has anyone used a rear mount finish mower on the back?

mark

This spring as plant life starts to sprout keep your eye open for weeds and select the area for this years garden where the least weeds are. Most areas have weed identification books, that are valuable to help determine what you are dealing with.

I will not go any further than this without knowing exactly where you are. I don't want to give a lot of useless advice. If you want drop me an e mail, I love gardening vegetables, also like to learn what other areas are doing. Some things work well in some areas and not so well in others. Why I even have three tractors just for this, on less than 2 acres. SA, 130 and 140.

You ask in your area what crop will croud your weed. You might also try buckwheat on an area 20' by 20', see how it works. Always worth a shot, I would try several crops see what works best, for you. It is truly a trial and error type of project.

Best way to get rid of Bermuda grass....don't plant it:>. Second-a sod spade, pile it up and compost the stuff. I'd think roundup would work if applied several weeks before it goes dormant in the fall and then again in spring just after it breaks dormancy. Never tried though. Might be better herbicides for this too. Good Luck.

I would like more knowledge in particluar about setting up the cultivators, using the front mount fertilizer spreader.

Is it better (using the tractor) for longer rows ove shorter ones. I am thinking of approx 100 by 300 foot garden, that could be 33 feet x 100 each year with a 3 year rotation. Of course I could easily go to 120 x 300 and have 4 year rotation. Using green compost such as buckwheat. I don't know about them, I may want to use something like velvet beans or vetch.

any info you wish to share is appreaciated.

My tractor is on the implement page, look for Famrall 140 with post hole digger.

I suspect as far south as you are, there are probably better green manure crops in your area than buckwheat. I only use that as it works well here. I have discussed this item with guys before and from what I understand buckwheat does not work well in the south. We tend to get in trouble here with vetch, as it becomes a worse weed than what we are trying to croud out.

Anyway, back to the garden. After I get the green cover crop in and soil built up.

Lets talk about using the planter. As I said it is an old one point Cole duplex. I have way to many plates for it, both right and left handed. Just wondering if raised beds or like a truck farmer would do for planting. I might like to plant peas, string beans, butter beans each with one long row. I might be able to handle this without much in the way of instruction, just want to compare notes with others to use a tractor where before I used hand tools.

As to cultivation, I have never mounted the cultivators on the 140. I know that I have several sweeps and may have to get some new ones and sharpent the older ones. How sharp is enough? What depth do you set them at?

Using the fertiliser spreader- I have the mid mount spreader that sets in fron of the driver. I have never mounted the chain drive under the left wheel, how do you do this? How do you determine what rate the fertlizer is coming out at? Can you put a "Y" in the system to side dress two side at the time, or should you only dress one side?

I am planning to build a plastic much layer, I may also build some sort of planter to plant through the plastic. Any opinions on using black mulch.

Anyone ever used a rear mount mower like I am looking for?

thanks in advance

mark

A few things that I have found are:

Longer rows work better with tractors and cultivators. If you don't have wide headlands to turn around on, the first few feet of your crop will suffer as you get straightened out.

Setting up cultivators will take some trial and error. They usually work by moving soil rather than cutting off the weeds. Start with the shovels set a foot apart until you get the hang of adjusting your speed and depth to get the results that you want. You will need to be handy with the hoe for a while. Your local IH dealer will have new sweeps, but no real variety.

Unless you are very good with a push planter, the cultivators will only be good for rows that you planted with the mounted planters. Sorry can't help you with their set up, I'm using Planet Jrs and JD 70s.

If you are going to plant a lot of corn and squash, you might want to consider larger garden areas. Four 35 X 300 beds cover about an acre.

With cover crops try to alternate between broadleafs and and grasses. They compete with different weeds. Buckwheat is used more up here, but should work for you in the spring and fall, if not all season. Look at the ATTRA or the Univ of NC website for some ideas.

I grow vegetables in a four year rotation, but went away from a bare fallow because it was burning up my organic matter. Now I use soybeans and sorghum planted in rows and cultivated. Something like that would also give you a place to practice your cultivator skills without wiping out your green beans.

Getting the black plastic laid tight takes some careful set up even with a purchased plastic layer. You might want to consider putting drip tape in at the same time. You can buy a thing called a "water wheel" that will punch holes in the plastic and put some water in the hole. You would have to make your own frame. There are complete water wheel transplanters, but that might be a bit much for a garden.

Beds or rows work better for different crops depending mostly on how you are going to cultivate and harvest.

My fertilizing unit is not a factory IH job. It is electric driven by a 12 volt motor, and it has two down spouts. I didn't use that one last year as I went to 28% N solution and used a modified backpack sprayer for application. I broadcast all my P and K in the fall. My garden is basically notill on the garden plot in the actual year of vegetables. In the south I could see this being a bit more difficult without cold weather and deep freeze to kill off those weeds. I supose you could use Roundup in place of the frost.

I don't think you will find a tractor mounted seeder much benefit on small garden amounts. I guess for me I had and in fact used the hand push seeder even when commercially growing vegetables, for items one didn't grow a lot of. I find now that I just have a personal garden, all seeds fall in that catergory.