# Roto tiller for post SHTF



## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

If you live where the growing season is short it is pretty hard to garden without tilling the soil, in our area, with our soil and short growing season it would be very tough to spade enough ground to grow anything. So I got to wondering about a electric roto tiller, not one of the little rechargeable surface scratchers but some thing to replace a 8 hp gas tiller.


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## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

Tirediron said:


> If you live where the growing season is short it is pretty hard to garden without tilling the soil, in our area, with our soil and short growing season it would be very tough to spade enough ground to grow anything. So I got to wondering about a electric roto tiller, not one of the little rechargeable surface scratchers but some thing to replace a 8 hp gas tiller.


We disk ours with the tractor & store diesel. When the diesel runs out, it will be done by hand or horse. Not looking forward to it but what do ya do. :dunno:


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

right now we use a quadavator behind an ATV, which like a tractor is loud. I was thinking of electric (Solar or other silent source) power for the stealth factor. I definitely plan to use as much machinery as possible to make life as productive as possible after SHTF. Machinery is such an efficient labor multiplier that it has to IMO be taken very seriously especially when people can't just run to the store to get what they need.


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## crabapple (Jan 1, 2012)

Tirediron & tsrwivey,
I live in sandy South Carolina, but have family in the Mountains.
I would think the removal of as many rocks & stones(little rocks) would help as much as leave & animal manure to condition the soil now, before the SHTF.
I wish I could drive up Canada & pick up the rocks for you, so I could use them on the new root cellar. That would be a win win, but gas is $3.09 a gallon here.
And Texas is almost as far South of me.
I have not seen a rechargeable tiller as of yet.


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## JustCliff (May 21, 2011)

I thought about the same thing. How to prepare the ground after in happens. To much of a pain in the butt. For the majority of vegetables I made raised beds, a lot of raised beds. They have good soil in them and they are never walked on. At 4 ft. wide you don't have to step on them and can harvest with no problem. The beds will also heat up before the rest of the ground allowing you a couple weeks longer season. You can also leave your root crops in them during the cold season if you over mulch them then harvest when you need them. They can be planted much more intensively then row crops.
As for your grain growing areas. Get the soil in very workable shape before it happens. For things like corn and beans. The ground does not need to be tilled. For wheat the ground needs scratched pretty good. 
search the net for third world growing practices. There are some good pictures and some youtube videos.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

Good solid 12V motors are hard to find and not cheap when you do, most places that use them on their products will not sell just the motor but if you can find a good one they will spin a small rototiller like nothing. I have one off of a "drill fill" (little auger) that is about the size of an old v8 starter from the 80's with a simple shaft on it. With a tiny pulley it has been used on everything from a go cart to playing around with a small, light (p.o.s ) rototiller just for fun. A decent battery will run it for a long time and could be easily swapped out with Anderson connectors or similar.

If anyone has a line on 12V motors with a decent amount of shaft to mount pulley/sprocket I would sure appreciate a heads up. Most of the electric over hydraulic units have nice motors but they are made for direct connection and they don't want to sell just the motor.

To the topic at hand I guess I should add, we are even further north and do much/most of our gardening without any mechanical tillage these days, there are many things that can be done to make that easier.


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

To get a decent crop of grain, our soil needs to be worked people have tried no till in this area with poor success, there is no sand in our soil, it is basicly clay mixed with humus, it is productive soil, but it needs to be mixed, people who try raised beds either mix their own soil or go back to tillage, We hill our garden soil with a potato hiller to gain soil temperature and depth of bed ( for moisture holding/ drainage) our garden growing season is basicly last week in may until first week in September. with a couple of frosts and hail storms thrown in. 

@ cowboyhermit : I had thought of starter motors and the like, while they make good power the duty cycle is very short. I all reality I guess it is make noise and get stuff done. if it draws trouble, we get some target practice.


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## crabapple (Jan 1, 2012)

Tirediron, now that you post it, I remember person growing in heavy clay soil. It must be worked with a plow, when dry it to hard to shovel & when wet you slide down more then you turn soil. Large amounts of manure seems to help some, but that is work in it self & can cost$$.


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

Our soil is black and stuff grows well in it , but it has a lot of clay tendencies, if you disturb it when wet it clods up and is really hard to break back down. manure helps, but creates other problem with it.


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## Momturtle (Nov 2, 2009)

We have terrible rocky clay soil here and spend a great deal of time piling on rotten hay, stray, shredded leaves and anything else we can find. My BIL says that anything you bury here will be an improvement. Every year my DH spends hours getting the rototiller to work and it is just a noisy mess. This year however, while he was fighting with the tiller I started at one end and worked through the whole garden with my new best friend -- the broadfork. We are talking 1/4 acre garden, which is just our vegetable garden. In the improved soil of the garden it is very easy to use but even better, in areas that have never been worked it just chugs right along. People power at its best. If you have never used one, it is like a magic trick. Just drives down into the dirt and you pull the handles back. Breaks everything up. Check youTube for how they work.

It has even made planting trees and creating new herb beds much easier because it will dig up the soil enough that you can just shovel out the dirt. 

I like using 16th century tools as much as possible because they are durable, practical and last for a very long time. Quiet as well! This spring I am turning up a new 1/4 acre just for corn and grain. We already piled rotten hay on it in the early fall to kill any weeds and give the worms a chance at it. 

You can also get hand cultivators or push plows. In soil that has previously been worked they are a great help and you can do a lot with them, both in turning over soil and in cultivating weeds.


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## crabapple (Jan 1, 2012)

We call that a potato fork.
I bought a cheat one from wally world a few years back & sank it deep in the sandy soil, then pulled it back. POP go the tines & $14.00 up in smoke.
Should have bought the $30.00 one at the other place to start with.
The forks like a #7pound ax, it will make men out of boys, as my Father use to say.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

cowboyhermit said:


> If anyone has a line on 12V motors with a decent amount of shaft to mount pulley/sprocket I would sure appreciate a heads up.


Change your search parameters to look for 24 volts instead and your choices increase tenfold.

Large passenger buses have big 24 volt brush-style motors in all the of their air conditioner components (though they are higher RPM) , as well as electric forklifts and other industrial applications. I have a really nice 24 volt standard (like what you see on a farm) 1725 RPM electric motor from ebay.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

crabapple said:


> I bought a cheap one from wally world a few years back & sank it deep in the sandy soil, then pulled it back. POP go the tines & $14.00 up in smoke.


Take it back!


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## readytogo (Apr 6, 2013)

crabapple said:


> Tirediron & tsrwivey,
> I live in sandy South Carolina, but have family in the Mountains.
> I would think the removal of as many rocks & stones(little rocks) would help as much as leave & animal manure to condition the soil now, before the SHTF.
> I wish I could drive up Canada & pick up the rocks for you, so I could use them on the new root cellar. That would be a win win, but gas is $3.09 a gallon here.
> ...


http://www.tillersdirect.com/cultivators/electric-cordless-cultivators.html

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Decker-...98070&sr=8-5&keywords=black+and+decker+tiller


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## HardCider (Dec 13, 2013)

A herd of pigs. They till and fertilize at the same time :laugh: Electro netting and mobile pig house and you're set. For Alberta, you could use Russian Boars


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## sailaway (Mar 12, 2009)

Didn't know they made heavy duty electric motor ones, I've been passively loong foa heavy duty one with the tines mounted behind the motor.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

http://www.homepower.com/articles/home-efficiency/project-profiles/diy-electric-tiller-conversion









http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/how-to-electric-rototiller.aspx









http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9893


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

LincTex said:


> Change your search parameters to look for 24 volts instead and your choices increase tenfold.
> 
> Large passenger buses have big 24 volt brush-style motors in all the of their air conditioner components (though they are higher RPM) , as well as electric forklifts and other industrial applications. I have a really nice 24 volt standard (like what you see on a farm) 1725 RPM electric motor from ebay.


Good point, I did notice more 24V motors. It sort of bugged me in the past when I looked that they weren't just readily available though. They are used a lot on electric over hydraulic units, etc but still treated like a bit of a specialty for some reason. I prefer LVDC when possible :dunno: and I wish I could just pick them up new, or recommend them without a lot of fuss rather than finding one here or there online. EV conversions sites can be pretty good too (for new parts) but the prices are often a bit high imo.


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## *Andi (Nov 8, 2009)

HardCider said:


> A herd of pigs. They till and fertilize at the same time :laugh: Electro netting and mobile pig house and you're set. For Alberta, you could use Russian Boars


Mow with sheep and plow with pigs ... Our pigs (2) clean up our garden area each fall. :2thumb:


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## cnsper (Sep 20, 2012)

HardCider said:


> A herd of pigs. They till and fertilize at the same time :laugh: Electro netting and mobile pig house and you're set. For Alberta, you could use Russian Boars


We do that every year at a friends house. Boy do they clean it up good. We had an area that had a bunch of Hawthorne trees that needed to be cleaned up underneath, well we extended the fence and they cleaned all the crap from under those trees. Saved a lot of swearing they did.


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## HardCider (Dec 13, 2013)

Polyface Farm calls them "Pigaerators". Salatin has a new DVD out about age old pork production called "Pigs and Glens"


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

I will yoke an oxen long before I keep a pig to till a 1/4 acre and I doubt that the darn pig would root where we needed it to any way, more likely just wreck the headlands and ignore what needed tilled.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

Tirediron said:


> I will yoke an oxen long before I keep a pig to till a 1/4 acre and I doubt that the darn pig would root where we needed it to any way, more likely just wreck the headlands and ignore what needed tilled.


You keep them for the bacon, the tilling is just for the side order

The original "chicken tractor" concept was actually similar to this idea as well, if you keep chickens in the same spot long enough they will wipe it out. It is not the healthiest thing for the chickens though, so now they are moved all the time.


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

Bacon is not worth the hassles of raising pigs, They were handy when we shipped cream many decades ago, but the quota is sold and I have enough pig experience for one lifetime


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

Tirediron said:


> Bacon is not worth the hassles of raising pigs, They were handy when we shipped cream many decades ago, but the quota is sold and I have enough pig experience for one lifetime


I understand, was that on a large scale though? "Raising pigs" and having one or two heritage breed hogs on pasture is like night and day imo. Obviously most people are not going to go that route but it does have some merit, especially with some of the new fencing options.


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## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

Tirediron said:


> Bacon is not worth the hassles of raising pigs, They were handy when we shipped cream many decades ago, but the quota is sold and I have enough pig experience for one lifetime


Pigs are our easy meat, they eat anything, they DO till the ground if you manage them right, breed more than twice a year and the meat is tender even if they are old and broken down.
I've kept pigs for the past 21 years, nowhere near the hassle of other livestock. 
We all have our preferences depending on how we go about things. I would NEVER have another goat, not in this lifetime and not in the next. They stink their milk stinks and tastes worse, they can get out of anywhere and their meat is rubbish after 18 months. *But that is just my humble opinion*. We all see things differently. I can also smell/taste boar taint at 100 yards.... why I can not eat commercial pork, stinking stuff!!!!!


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

Goats are definitely a no-no too, I quite enjoy our cattle. I can see putting up with a few pigs post SHTF maybe, but I would rather trade some repair work for bacon. I traded my way into a Ford 8N , they are nice and quiet, and don't wreck too many fences, they also only eat if they work.


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## crabapple (Jan 1, 2012)

Tirediron said:


> Goats are definitely a no-no too, I quite enjoy our cattle. I can see putting up with a few pigs post SHTF maybe, but I would rather trade some repair work for bacon. I traded my way into a Ford 8N , they are nice and quiet, and don't wreck too many fences, they also only eat if they work.


Have you posted a photo of your 8N in this site?
If not can you?
I have a project TO-30 that need a lot of love.
Family member let it set for 8 years before I got it.


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

@ Crabapple, I am not ignoring your request, the 8N is sitting in our bale yard, beside my old service truck both are feeling neglected, I doubt either will get much attention till fall. The cows keep them company when they get in to "mow" the grass


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