# How do you till your soil ??



## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

What do you use to till your soil, human power , horse power, an ATV , a tractor. 
I would think that most people who live where there is real winter are going to need some help tilling the soil.
For our smaller projects we us a quadivator Quadivator Inc. - The Ultimate ATV Implement:The Quadivator and attachments behind a Polaris 300 4x4 , I also fabbed up a set of extensions for it so we could use it behind a tractor.
Also built a hiller for it. It came with the box scrapper attachment which works ok if thats all you have. 
it would be easy to convert for horse use if nessicary.


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## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

*BCS 720 Harvester*


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## *Andi (Nov 8, 2009)

horse power ... :2thumb:

Or maybe I should say draft horse power ... lol


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## lhalfcent (Mar 11, 2010)

Kid power... just think hamsters in a wheel... totally kid power... heheh


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## siletz (Aug 23, 2011)

We do everything by human powered shovels, grubhoe, etc.


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## Emerald (Jun 14, 2010)

I never till, EVER! Kills the soil structure. I work too damn hard making my soil alive to go in and kill it.


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## Jason (Jul 25, 2009)

We've used either our 4 bottom plow hooked up to one of the farm tractors or our Craftsman rototiller. Depends on the size of the garden. We've moved the garden around the yard a few times, too, trying to find the best spot. I think we have that figured out now and the past 2 years we've just used the tiller.


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## ZoomZoom (Dec 18, 2009)

3-point hitch rototiller on the back of the tractor for the big stuff. Troy-Bilt Super Bronco tiller for the mid-sized stuff and a little Honda Harmony for the small stuff.

If/as needed, I'll put on the box blade with scarafire teeth. A York rake for rocks.

Oh, and I do have hand tools (and kids) for when times get tough.


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## Woody (Nov 11, 2008)

UncleJoe said:


> *BCS 720 Harvester*


I have a 2005 or 2006 718 Joe, what a pleasure the BSC is to use. Pricy but worth that much more than any modern tiller 'made' in the US, unfortunately.

I am still in process of building my soil from hard clay and granite so need to till in lots of compost each season. I do have two areas where I am starting to get enough of a structure to where I can lasagna them. Huge advantage in not having to till those areas! Lots of compost and newspaper for mulch has been working great there.


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## kejmack (May 17, 2011)

I have raised beds. I do "no-till" gardening and heavy mulch. I have used it extensively since I first learned about it 15 years ago.


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## VUnder (Sep 1, 2011)

Emerald said:


> I never till, EVER! Kills the soil structure. I work too damn hard making my soil alive to go in and kill it.


We have an 8' PTO tiller. Dad told me one day that it breaks the dirt up too much. But, we have four commercial poultry houses, so enough fertilizer to make up for it. My brother took a 12', 1000 gallon butane tank and we welded a tongue on it and made a water filled packer out of it. That helps it out a lot after you till it. The tilling would probably be better if you are doing a weedy patch that wasn't a garden last year.

An offset disc works good too. My brother has a Ford 5610 4X4 with water in the tires, heavy 3/8" belly pan, and a loader, so it is heavy. The offset disc is 8', and it makes all four wheels slip if you let the disc all the way down. It is a large tongue pull disc that has a hydraulic axle of its own.

But, usually dad is out there with the smallest old tractor he has, which was the only tractor his dad ever bought new, flat breaking the patch. Then he discs it. Then he puts the planter on and lays his rows off. We planted corn on Valentines day this year, and were the only ones that had corn. Everybody elses' corn burned up from the heat.

I saw some other humans using a plow they made. It was a flat blade, laying flat, cross ways to the tractor, sharp edge to the front. They drove along and the blade was just a few inches deep, and just cut the ground but did not disturb the top. It killed the grass, but kept the top solid and retained more moisture. They had a "no till drill" made out of a large tractor implement that was cut down, and planted with that. I have been wanting to try that and see how it works.


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## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

Woody said:


> I have a 2005 or 2006 718 Joe, what a pleasure the BSC is to use. Pricy but worth that much more than any modern tiller 'made' in the US, unfortunately.


Mine is a '98-'99. A friend of mine has a large landscape biz. He bought this brand new. The first season, one of his guys ran it with no oil; for about 5 minutes. He parked it in the garage where it sat until 2008. That spring I stopped by and asked him if he was "replacing any tillers this year?" He doesn't like old equipment. He took me out to the garage and showed it to me. I asked him "how much?" His response; "just get it out of here, I need the room."  At the time I had never heard of BCS. A quick Google search enlightened me. We threw it up on the truck, I ordered a new engine ($350) and have used it hard ever since. In '09 I advertised to do garden tilling and paid for the engine that spring. Net cost to me... $0.


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## Meerkat (May 31, 2011)

Raised beds,never till our soil.Single or double dig once and its done forever . 
Hand tools only,except for lawn tractor for grass.


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

So can some of you who have figured out how to grow without tilling give an overveiw of the process, and does it work with most soil types??


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## VUnder (Sep 1, 2011)

Tirediron said:


> So can some of you who have figured out how to grow without tilling give an overveiw of the process, and does it work with most soil types??


That plow I described was home made. If you can imagine, it just "fillets" the top of the ground, about 3" deep or so. It is just like slicing a hoe under the grass roots, and the grass can't draw moisture and nutrients. But, the ground retains moisture because it is not turned over or "tilled". Then, I call it a planter, they call it a "no till drill", and it was a piece off of a huge setup for a huge tractor. Kinda like a regular planter, like a covington, but it had a flat disc blade that actually cut the ground ahead of the plow. The plow point was small and not wide like on a regular planter we are used to. It didn't disturb the soil much. It did have the roller wheel behind it like other planters that closed the seed furrow back.

In the big time farming, they don't cut under the grass. The chemicals and pesticides we eat do all that for them. So for the small operation, slicing was the best way to kill the weeds. The slicer they had was about seven feet across, as wide as the tractor. Maybe a piece of half inch thick, by six inches wide, and seven feet long. They went across the front edge with a torch and cut a sharp bevel seven feet long and then ground it sharp. The bevel was one sided with the flat side down, and angled side up. It had a three pt. hitch on it. Had a piece of flat coming down to each end and one in the middle to keep it from bowing when you pull up on it when it is in the dirt. You set the height with you lift and set the angle with your top link.

So, take your regular planter and put a sharp cutter in front of the shank. Put a narrow foot on the shank and that should get you to No Tillin Drillin.


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## Woody (Nov 11, 2008)

Tirediron said:


> So can some of you who have figured out how to grow without tilling give an overveiw of the process, and does it work with most soil types??


Another method is called Lasagna gardening because you build the soil in layers, like lasagna. You can start with any kind of soil and place layers of compost, grass clippings, newspaper, mulch&#8230; on top. Year after year the additions slowly decompose and form a layer of soil with bacteria, bugs and worms that help break down and circulate the layers.

I started mine by tilling a foot deep and for several years now have been adding leaves, mulch, kitchen scraps, yard waste&#8230; into it. With our brutally hot summers here I felt I needed to get a deep bed for the roots to go into. I started with hard packed red clay mixed with granite rocks. Not too productive for other than local weeds. Some areas are at the point now where I can just add a layer of newspaper with mulch over it and plant through that. A few places I still feel need more amending to the soil through tilling.

Emerald should chime in now because she is much more knowledgeable about the whole process than I am!


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## Meerkat (May 31, 2011)

We built 3 new raised beds this summer.The other garden was too far for our liking. This one is up against the south side of the house ,so is the greenhouse.
We did not wait for years of layering,we just conditioned the soil and it grew crops just fine.Squah,tomatos,peppers and okra all grew in new dirt.
We put in peat moss,compost and single dug the sandy loam.
if you live where theres clay soil,just add some sand ,peat and compost.If you don't have compost use fertilizer under the soil when you dig,then again 4 weeks after planting or with trnsplants,just put it beside the plants.We use organics like blood meal,sea kelp or bag plant fertilizer from Lowes .Also chicken manure if its old enough.


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## Emerald (Jun 14, 2010)

I just layered thick(black and white only) newspaper then dumped on leaves and grass clippings and for a couple years I layered on some composted cow/horse/straw compost.. but this year the darn grass I have been fighting won the war in my big garden and we didn't' grow as much as we normally do. I just pulled the grass(it has huge long white runners and I've heard it called several different names) and planted only along the fencing I have up. Just not feeling that well this year and the grand children are keeping me busy.
That first year I just dug down and cut a slit in the paper and planted away.. I didn't wait for it.
I've also just layered partially rotted straw over the sandier area of my yard for a bed and planted thru it that same year.. it was ok.. but two years down the road you could take a shovel and "cut" down and see where the worms and other critters had pulled all the straw and other organic stuff I piled on down into the sand and there was a nice layer of darker soil. That is not a bed tho any longer as I started my mini orchard there.. with flowers and ornamental grass between..

While I detest using plastics.. I ended up with some super thick black plastic(it is used for protecting stuff outside) from a friend and I will be laying it down over the top of my garden area and leave it for a year or so and try to kill off that nasty grass.
I do want to make raised beds that have detachable cold frames for the tops and detachable small chicken pens so that I can use my hens to de weed them every so often plus it will do the chickens good. but most of that takes more cash than what I have at the moment.


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## Emerald (Jun 14, 2010)

One bummer tho about the plastic-it may kill off my "live soil" .. and I will have to start over with the worms and such.


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

Thank all of you for your replies, this information really applies to gardening for preppers in my opinion. luckily I have access to lots of composted cow manure.


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