Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Gardening with a tractor

Posted by riverbend on February 24, 2004 at 07:49:09 from (208.160.33.220):

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Gardening with a tractor posted by mark on February 24, 2004 at 06:07:19:

Hugh MacKay is spot on with most of his advice.

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.

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