Cleaning Ditch

[Johndeere3720]

I clean my ditch with the loader bucket, put it down as far as it can and scoop out the weeds. It takes a while when you have a certain place to put the weeds. I dont know if this helps but good luck anyway.

 

[dillo99]

Thanks for the reply. The ditch originally was probably 6' wide, maybe 2' deep. I like your thought on using a rear blade tilted. I would consider this ditch to be shallow, would you agree? There are weeds growing, no trees. Would it make sense to break up the dirt in thre ditch first?

I do want to try this project rather than hiring someone, I am retired and bought the tractor to play with this type of project in mind.

Thanks

Yes, I would consider this shallow - and it is nice and wide.

With this wide of a ditch I would wait until things were fairly dry and then I would run the tractor right down in there - scraping with the loader. Once I had most of the material out I would finish with an angled back blade or box blade. This should give you a nice finish and even everything out.

 

[Taylortractornut]

Some advice I learned early on from my dad when I was younger and he first started me out on heavy equipment. When clearing a ditch like that make sure the silted in bottom is strong enought to hold the ditch side of the machine . Iv almost rolled a TLB over that way and got many a dozer hung. You can start out good then one side will fall out of sight. I dig a little dip first to check out the dampness and hardness of the silt. Some times this determines if I need to go in perpendiculr to the ditch if Im usinfg a loader type machine. if its dry enough Ill go in perpendicular with a loader and scoop out a sectoin wide as my machiine is long so I can keep my swale angle. I usually dump my spoils on the go so they could be spread out a bit. sometimes I leave it in central piles it its good tops soil so I can use it later. My next suggestion is before the end of each day Id sow bag of wild birdseed on my dressed up slope. This will come up in a few days and make a nice grassed water way to save you from having to deal with erosion and plugging for a while.