Driveway Maintenance and Cultivating a 2 acre garden/orchard prep

[Highsmith]

Visited my dealer today to look at implements. I need to maintain a 1200' gravel driveway and level soil (pretty sandy) with a Kubota L2350 4wd. My choices included 6' box blade or $649, 6' double blade grader for $899, 6' angle blade for $679. The 6' double blade grader (also described as a land plane) looked like it would work best for the driveway.

I also want to level sandy soil to prepare for a garden and orchard. I also want an implement to maintain the garden in non-growing seasons to prevent weeds, prickly-pear cactus, and mesquite from getting started.

I would love one implement that would do both, but I expect I will have to purchase two. Need feedback to ensure I get the right tools to make my work fun without wasting money.

Also, $170 for a Kubota drawbar? I know it needs to be good steel, but really?

Thanks.

 

[paccorti]

I think you are going to get votes for each of them. I have a heavy 7 foot rear angle blade w/gauge wheel that works very well for me. I can move material left or right and as you angle the blade more (say 45 degrees) you even start leveling front to back because you are pulling the blade over such a long distance. My blade is very heavy (Land Pride RB3584) so it's easy for me to dig down into the gravel if I want to. I maintain about 1 mile of road with my blade (community road). For me the 7 foot blade is also good because I can push snow and maintain culverts with it.

I'm not sure what to tell you about garden prep; I use my wife's tiller for our small garden. It's not clear to me why you would need a drawbar... aren't these implements all 3pt or are you thinking plow or something?

Good luck!

Peter

 

[Highsmith]

I want a drawbar to pull a trailer. They showed me the cheaper option that attaches to the 3 point hitch but I would prefer the drawbar that inserts into the frame.

 

[300UGUY]

I want a drawbar to pull a trailer. They showed me the cheaper option that attaches to the 3 point hitch but I would prefer the drawbar that inserts into the frame.

Surprised that you don't have one. I think it is standard equipment. I didn't pay extra for mine. That orange hat cost me a bunch!!

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Can't really help out with the garden other than to think about a rototiller. As far as maintaining a drive, I highly recommend a land plane grader blade. (LPGB) I also have a rear blade and box blade and landscape rake. Use them all in the 2 & 3/8 miles of roads and fence lines that I look after. The LPGB works the best for general all around maintenance for me. You might want to consider a 60" box blade or LPGB instead of the 72". Sort of makes a difference with how heavy they are though.

 

[Wolfy]

A landscape ("york") rake works very well for gravel driveways. For the garden, you can get by with a cultivator, but a rototiller is the cat's meow. I have a dedicated garden tractor with a rototiller, much cheaper than a compact tractor rototiller and easier than a walk behind.

 

[oosik]

Somebody saw you coming on the price of the drawbar!!! A replacement OEM drawbar for my Kubota is only $55 and its quite a bit bigger than yours would be.
For driveway maintenance I do not think you could do any better than a land plane/grading scraper. I have available, for driveway maintenance, a HD rear blade, roll-over box blade and grading scraper. For summer work its the grading scraper about 99% of the time. Some times I use the roll-over box blade to move soil/gravel from here to there. The rear blade is for winter snow removal.

I guess you could drag the grading scraper around over the garden plot and keep it stirred up and things from growing. I use a disk harrow, then a home made drag harrow to prep my garden spot. I've never tried my grading scraper on the garden spot but if I dropped the scarifiers as low as they can go it might do the job. If you get a grading scraper with scarifiers it might be worth a try before buying another implement - you'd have nothing to loose.

 

[jenkinsph]

I agree with the LPGB being the most suitable first purchase. You can do most of the driveway maintenance with it and smooth out a pasture or lawn area too. The garden spot will require a few small attachments, some prefer a tiller others use plows. I have small and larger box blades, landscape rakes, rear blades, tillers and the land plane grader blades the last being the most used.

If you plan on putting an orchard in then proper planning for irrigation and drainage is important. Might wan't to check with your local county agent and/or the NRCS office as they should be able to help.