Building a Hobby Farm- from woods to eggs

[tony123]

Dave, glad you're enjoying the thread. Sounds like you have experience that is spot on for what I'm doing. Please stick around and let me benifet from it.

Good point about the steeper wooded parts of the property. My plan shows it labelled as goats. My flat portions are precious, and if the animals don't mind the slope, well then thats what they get. I am concerned about the goats hurting trees. I hear people talk of how quickly they'll strip trees of the bark. I wouldn't want to start loosing trees. Or maybe they only strip the young, tender trees?

 

[oldhippy]

Tony I think that when you see the intermitent on the wheel rotation is the spider gears working in the front end. I have noticed this when my front wheels are spinning. What I am talking about is a bang that happens when the gear slips to the next tooth. I think the spring is not strong enough or the gears are worn on the edges letting them slip to the next cog. When I take it out of 4wd the noise goes away. I run my tractor in 4wd all the time except when on pavement. If you don't have lockouts the gears turn anyway and you get the same wear.
I do use the fel but with out the fwd it doesn't work as well as it should. I haul all sorts of stuff in it. Right now I have about 3ft of horse manure in the barn left by the former owner that I am removing and I sure am glad to have the fel for that for sure. big dan

 

[oldhippy]

That tiller sure looks good on the attachment page. big dan

 

[tony123]

big dan, I'm not too mechanical, but sounds like you're saying spider gears are designed to do what I'm seeing. No, I don't have any noises that you're describing. I, too, am in 4wd 99% of the time.

 

[tony123]

Yesterday morning I got to play around more with the new tiller (RS1400). I wrestled with getting it to not hit my rear tires, and finally got it where I can live with it. The only thing I can't do is lift all the way, but I can avoid that.

You can see, its not pretty, but it did do the work! I changed up the layout a bit from the masterplan. For this first year, I think two rows at about 60' work well. I don't want to overwork us, and that is 10 times the garden we had at the last house. This also allowed an 8' "road" throught the middle so that I can easily get the pickup through, etc. If all goes well this year, we can space things differently and get another row or two in.

Here's the photo showing the 8' road between rows. If you remember earlier discussion of the powerline, this road is above it, so no dirt work over the powerline.

I made a few passes and got it nice and fluffy down to 10". Picked up a few football sized rocks and got them out of there. You can now literally "wade" through the soil up to above your ankles. It's a little clumping because of the moisture, but I imagine it will be a powder when a little drier.

This is a good shot showing the road all the way back to my house. That's my house behind the trees. None of the summer shots showed it, as the leaves are too thick.

The "ravine" inbetween the house and farm is the space we're thinking of fencing for the goats and chickens to graze. How's that look Dave?

 

[tony123]

I called our local extension agent (at Clemson). He was the nicest guy, and spent about an hour on the phone with me discussing soil prep and gardening.

His advice was to not bother with a soil test this year, as I'm late to do much composting anyway. He said that 99% of the time our poor soils here need to start with 1500 pounds per acre of lime. So I went to the feed store and picked up 240pounds of pelletized lime. Today we will till it into the garden strips and let it leach out over the next few months. I'm also going to broadcast it over all the areas that we seeded this past fall.

His suggestion was that this would get the ph up to about 6.2 and that next fall we can till in compost.

They also have a great website for vegetable types, plant and harvest dates, fertilizer, etc. all specific to our location. We'll use it as a guide. Here's the link Landscape, Garden & Indoor Plants - HGIC @ Clemson University

 

[scgargoyle]

I'll bet the soil is acid (hence the lime) just by observing what grows in our area. I know my place is- there are moss and blueberries- signs of acid soil. A lot of that is simply from all the leaves that have been composting for who-knows-how-many years. Sounds like easy tilling- you oughta try that in New England some time Have you got your seed catalogs yet?

 

[MacLawn]

Okay, here we are again, back from the tiller post. Got to get me one of those! That is looking great, Tony! My GA clay soil is about the same as you have there in Traveler's Rest area. Two of my cousins raise goats, you should have good success with them. They will probaly like the valley area between garden and house in photo.

 

[tony123]

SC, yes, its pretty acid it seems. The tilling was very easy. It bounced a few times when I found football sized rocks, but the golfball stuff doesn't phase it. By the time I was done, I could pass through and not even know the tiller was behind me.

MacLawn, I've worked through Georgia some, and our soils are pretty much identical. I thought I would have to use an air chisel to break into it, but this tiller didn't hardly have to work at it. I'll bet you'd be pleased with one. And for the price of these used Yanmar tillers how could you go wrong. I originally started the "justify a tiller" thread when I thought I would be making a $1200 purchase. And at that price I think I would have had buyers remorse. So, are you near the state line?

 

[tony123]

This post is for all those that enjoy seeing the kids enjoy the farm. Today was absolutely gorgeous for early January! We nearly hit 70, and lots of sunshine. Yes, I said 70! Heck, last weeks snow was still hanging around until this morning.

So, the whole family spent the day out on the farm together. The boys went on a "rock" hunt through the garden soil. Here's Mom showing them how to wade through and kick for rocks.

We'd load up the wagon and the boys would push it over to our rock holding spot.

Of course, we had time for "dirt angels".

And hide and go seek in the trough at the end of the row.

And we held the first annual "Vegetable Sprint"

All in all, the kind of day you need in January to help you get through to spring.