Plowing a tiny bit of land with just a loader?

GeoHorn · Mar 29, 2020

The problem with using old carpet is if you ever try to till it in the future you will find your tiller all “wadded-up” in carpet and polyester twine. It’s a mess.

Don’t recommend carpet or anything synthetic.

Think about this... it’s YOUR land! Don’t you want to use things that are biodegradable and good for it?

PNWBXer · Mar 29, 2020

Geohorn,

how do you use a loader/bucket for raised beds? Wife wants to do raised beds for some reason....I was thinking that would eliminate my BX from "helping out" with the garden as I couldn't turn the dirt after it was done.

GeoHorn · Mar 30, 2020

PNWBXer said:
Geohorn,

how do you use a loader/bucket for raised beds? Wife wants to do raised beds for some reason....I was thinking that would eliminate my BX from "helping out" with the garden as I couldn't turn the dirt after it was done.

Well... let’s see if you can figure this out...

First, you build the platform (might consider concrete construcion-blocks)...

THEN.... leessee now... HOW in the WORLD are we gonna get dirt in those raised beds...??? Hmmmmnnn....

fruitcakesa · Mar 30, 2020

GeoHorn said:
The problem with using old carpet is if you ever try to till it in the future you will find your tiller all “wadded-up” in carpet and polyester twine. It’s a mess.

Don’t recommend carpet or anything synthetic.

Think about this... it’s YOUR land! Don’t you want to use things that are biodegradable and good for it?

Geo, that is definitely an issue and synthetics only make it worse.

vic gerbasi · Mar 30, 2020

you are close enough to Dauphin and can rent 3ph equipment or better yet ask a nearby farmer to help you with the tasks btw you cant grow kulbasa

Magicman · Mar 30, 2020

Same when your Bushhog spindle gets wrapped with hay bale twine and destroys the seal.

GeoHorn · Mar 30, 2020

Magicman said:
Same when your Bushhog spindle gets wrapped with hay bale twine and destroys the seal.

And the lower-unit of your outboard has water in it from fishing-line wrapped around the prop-shaft, cutting into the gear-case seal.

(Makes one wanna use some as a garrote on the guy who just tossed that stuff overboard.)

Poohbear · Mar 30, 2020

You're " raised bed " doesn't need to be raised. Just make a box using 2/10 or whatever you have UNTREATED lumber sitting on the ground. Newspaper/cardboard liner then fill . Tomatoes in buckets also works
The " 3 Sisters " Indian style corn/beans/squash works great . Use an heirloom corn and you can save some for next years seed. Those three foods will sustain you in a dire emergency. You can also sub pumpkin for the squash.
My late FiL who was a very knowledgeable rancher/farmer was allways saying if you can't make a living on 50 acres cut it down to 5 . Put your effort into what you can actually take care of.

skeets · Mar 30, 2020

I said in the GREEN HOUSE for the carpet, not in the field, he did say he wanted a green house as well,,, A raised bed is anything you plant in that is above the ground,, nice things about raised beds is you can change the compound for what ever you are growing, as different plants require different things in the soil. You can build them up on stands at waist high, or just on top of the ground framed in with 2x10s laying ground cloth underneath to help keep out weeds. You can use half barrels cut long ways with a couple drain holes, and build a table or just lay them on the ground, There are as many different ways to do them. as there are people doing them.
And dont pay any attention to some sarcastic remarks from some people in here. They might think they are being funny,,, not so much to someone asking a question about things they know very little about

PNWBXer · Mar 30, 2020

GeoHorn said:
Well... let***8217;s see if you can figure this out...

First, you build the platform (might consider concrete construcion-blocks)...

THEN.... leessee now... HOW in the WORLD are we gonna get dirt in those raised beds...??? Hmmmmnnn....

wow...I bet you're fun to hang around

. Sure filling them with dirt. But you cant till it or cultivate it..... and only if it's wide enough could you use your bucket to maybe dig it up every year.

My neighbor has raised beds which he constructed last year. Its a pain just to lift his old heavy push behind tiller into his beds to turn the dirt so now that i have a BX with a FEL...I can help him with that. But his beds are anchored down....and other than dumping in dirt....its worthless for a tractor to work with. Maybe if you had non anchored beds...you could lift up the beds leaving the dirt in there to till or something......other than that...I cant think of another use of a BX with raised beds. A BX allows you to have bigger garden....but Idk about raised beds.

GreensvilleJay · Mar 31, 2020

Raised beds require a very light,fluffy, composty soil NOT 'dirt'. You can't take regular 'garden soil' from the field and use it in a raised bed. I KNOW first hand no matter what the 'expert' said, the beds never worked for 3 years. I replaced most of the 'dirt' with proper 'soil' and the veggies LOVED it. EASY to till with a garden trowel, even finger can turn the 'soil'. Also EVERY year you MUST add more compost, peat moss, etc.
2' tall beds are easily made from 2by10, 2by6,2by10 ,biscuits and WP glue with 'boxed' corners, 3" screws. 3' wide beds seem managable.

GeoHorn · Apr 1, 2020

PNWBXer said:
wow...I bet you're fun to hang around . Sure filling them with dirt. But you cant till it or cultivate it..... and only if it's wide enough could you use your bucket to maybe dig it up every year.

My neighbor has raised beds which he constructed last year. Its a pain just to lift his old heavy push behind tiller into his beds to turn the dirt so now that i have a BX with a FEL...I can help him with that. But his beds are anchored down....and other than dumping in dirt....its worthless for a tractor to work with. Maybe if you had non anchored beds...you could lift up the beds leaving the dirt in there to till or something......other than that...I cant think of another use of a BX with raised beds. A BX allows you to have bigger garden....but Idk about raised beds.

My Flippant reply was made in fun... I didn’t mean it to appear sarcastically. I apologize if it came across that way.

“Tilling” the soil is overrated. Many farmers are abandoning those old methods, which are damaging to the land in the long-term. Plowing and tilling was an old-world necessity to bring up nutrients and present them to the plants in over-utilized farming that had depleted the soils. With raised beds, it will be easier to add the nutrients and avoid heavy tilling/plowing operations that require machinery.

Workerbee · Apr 2, 2020

GeoHorn said:
“Tilling” the soil is overrated. Many farmers are abandoning those old methods, which are damaging to the land in the long-term. Plowing and tilling was an old-world necessity to bring up nutrients and present them to the plants in over-utilized farming that had depleted the soils. With raised beds, it will be easier to add the nutrients and avoid heavy tilling/plowing operations that require machinery.

Lol where did you ever dream that up? I farmed for a lot of years and we never plowed or tilled to bring up nutrients. We did so to bury crop residue, to reduce ground compaction, to control certain weeds, and to help the new crop as black soil warms up much faster, dries quicker, and is much better for starting a new crop than soil covered with residue. But maybe pretend farmers do things differently.

GreensvilleJay · Apr 3, 2020

I figure 'raised beds' were invented so some guys wife's cousin would have a job stamping out those high priced brackets you 'need' to make the boxes.

There's no way a raised bed outperforms 'normal' farming over a 3-10 year period.BTDT, both 'side by side'. I've only seen RBs kinda work, in the concrete jungle, but still less yield/acre when you consider all input costs.
we've downsized the garden to about a 1/4. That feeds fresh veggies to 4 families, surplus sold to pay for 1 week down south vacation, AND a large freezer FULL ,usually past next year's plantings.
Hopefully within the next week , I'l be able to run subsoiler through the whole garden,week later, deep plow, week later rototill,week later plant early crops. Total seat time, less than 2 hrs. How long would it take to do that to RBs ?
I'm not saying RBs are bad, just not overall cost effective.

Poohbear · Apr 3, 2020

We are already eating mustard greens & romaine lettuce

Someone mentioned using expensive brackets on RB boxes but all I ever did was was just screwed the corners of #3 grade untreated lumber with outdoor grade screws. Since we put the garden in at the country place we took the (4) 4/8 RB's out.

GeoHorn · Apr 3, 2020

Workerbee said:
Lol where did you ever dream that up? I farmed for a lot of years and we never plowed or tilled to bring up nutrients. We did so to bury crop residue, to reduce ground compaction, to control certain weeds, and to help the new crop as black soil warms up much faster, dries quicker, and is much better for starting a new crop than soil covered with residue. But maybe pretend farmers do things differently.

Well-said!...(from the same mentality that brought us the Dust-Bowl.)

No need to ridicule. I didn’t “dream it up”.

I admit I’m not a large-acreage farmer. (Thank God for that..and Thank You for doing it. I don’t have the money to fight big corporations.)

My suggestion was for the average gardener...not a large-acreage farmer.
But even castigators can read. Try it sometime: https://crops.extension.iastate.edu/encyclopedia/frequent-tillage-and-its-impact-soil-quality

GreensvilleJay · Apr 3, 2020

I've always chuckled when I see 'no-till' is better. For generations, farmers plowed/disced/planted and crops grew. Generations ! Dozens of decades...
What is NEVER posted by the pro-no-tillers is that farmers do NOT use manure on the fields. Instead they use cheap, man made fertilizers that do NOT contribute to the 'tilth' of the soil. They also drive heavy machines , year after year, on the soil. Typically they rotate 2 or 3 crops, NEVER leaving the field in fallow, 1 out of 4 years.
I understand 'time is money' and no-till came out as a method to save time, therefore money but the soil has suffered from the abuse. There are everal fields near me that farmers have gone back to the old days. Using subsoilers to breakup the compacated fields, going back to 1-4 rotations.
What was an eye opener for me was walking on a 5 year no-tilled field vs my garden. No-til was rock hard, mine...you sank down 2-3 inches.

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Plowing a tiny bit of land with just a loader?

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