danielread
New member
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2007
- Messages
- 9
Hello,
Back in August I spent a lot of time reading these forums when we were considering the purchase of a tractor. There were a lot of helpful people and interesting stories, so I thought of TractorByNet again this week when we found ourselves again not sure what to do.
After our research back in August, we decided to get a walk behind DR Power Field & Brush Mower (the largest model) for our land-clearing needs, so we still don't have a tractor.
(I would be happy to respond to anyone who is curious about this product--in short, it's been awesome. We've used it to clear four of five acres since we purchased it in August. It's hard work, but the DR is a land-clearing beast that lives up to its sales pitch.)
So now we have all this wonderful cleared land, still with lots of trees standing. We've mowed down giant sticker bushes, millions of privets, miles of smilax, wisteria, and kudzu, and plenty of maple, holly, and milkweed. We have many piles of deadfall, branches, and vines that will someday need to be fed into a wood chipper or dumpster.
The land itself is tiered, up a hill with a moderate incline. It was probably farmed at one time, but that was probably a long time ago. Near the top of the hill, there are old house foundations, wells, dry creek beds, rock walls, moonshine still remains, lots and lots of glass bottles, and decades old car seats scattered. There are some decent-sized swaths of open land, though, on the tiers as you move up the hill. Like I said, so far we have we figure four or five of our ten acres cleared.
One problem is that even in relatively clear and open swaths, where we could maneuver a compact tractor without too much trouble, there are a good number of field stones.
So our next step is to treat the land we've cleared somehow so that we can keep the same privets, vines, and sticker bushes from coming back again and again. We're prepared to roll the DR over everything again once a year or so, but we don't want to do that forever.
We're not into chemicals, so our first idea was to rent or buy a tractor and use some kind of implement to basically till the land under and chew up the existing roots and vines under the surface. Then we can plant some grass or some other kind of ground cover in place of what's been tilled under.
Besides the the question of whether that's a good plan or not, we're also not sure if the presence of field stones and possibly other debris, and the general unevenness of the terrain, would do too much damage to something dragged behind a tractor. We don't want to just tear an expensive tractor up.
Is there a general assumption when using a tractor as a tiller that the land has been cleared of any stones? We're not looking to farm the land--we just want to get a leg up on the invasive species that have ruled the land for years. (You should see the foot-thick wisteria vines we've sawed down.) There are a fair number of trees, and rocky separations between the tiers, and we just want to maintain a nice open area under all the trees.
Or should we be considering just digging up the land using a front loader or back hoe?
Or should we just consider buying or renting some kind of heavy duty roto tiller? That might make the work more manual and slow, but if it's as satisfying as the DR work has been, we don't mind. It seems like the main benefit of some kind of walk behind tiller would be that we could work around rocks and such.
Thanks to anyone who has read this far and is willing to share ideas or comments.
Best,
Dan
Back in August I spent a lot of time reading these forums when we were considering the purchase of a tractor. There were a lot of helpful people and interesting stories, so I thought of TractorByNet again this week when we found ourselves again not sure what to do.
After our research back in August, we decided to get a walk behind DR Power Field & Brush Mower (the largest model) for our land-clearing needs, so we still don't have a tractor.
(I would be happy to respond to anyone who is curious about this product--in short, it's been awesome. We've used it to clear four of five acres since we purchased it in August. It's hard work, but the DR is a land-clearing beast that lives up to its sales pitch.)
So now we have all this wonderful cleared land, still with lots of trees standing. We've mowed down giant sticker bushes, millions of privets, miles of smilax, wisteria, and kudzu, and plenty of maple, holly, and milkweed. We have many piles of deadfall, branches, and vines that will someday need to be fed into a wood chipper or dumpster.
The land itself is tiered, up a hill with a moderate incline. It was probably farmed at one time, but that was probably a long time ago. Near the top of the hill, there are old house foundations, wells, dry creek beds, rock walls, moonshine still remains, lots and lots of glass bottles, and decades old car seats scattered. There are some decent-sized swaths of open land, though, on the tiers as you move up the hill. Like I said, so far we have we figure four or five of our ten acres cleared.
One problem is that even in relatively clear and open swaths, where we could maneuver a compact tractor without too much trouble, there are a good number of field stones.
So our next step is to treat the land we've cleared somehow so that we can keep the same privets, vines, and sticker bushes from coming back again and again. We're prepared to roll the DR over everything again once a year or so, but we don't want to do that forever.
We're not into chemicals, so our first idea was to rent or buy a tractor and use some kind of implement to basically till the land under and chew up the existing roots and vines under the surface. Then we can plant some grass or some other kind of ground cover in place of what's been tilled under.
Besides the the question of whether that's a good plan or not, we're also not sure if the presence of field stones and possibly other debris, and the general unevenness of the terrain, would do too much damage to something dragged behind a tractor. We don't want to just tear an expensive tractor up.
Is there a general assumption when using a tractor as a tiller that the land has been cleared of any stones? We're not looking to farm the land--we just want to get a leg up on the invasive species that have ruled the land for years. (You should see the foot-thick wisteria vines we've sawed down.) There are a fair number of trees, and rocky separations between the tiers, and we just want to maintain a nice open area under all the trees.
Or should we be considering just digging up the land using a front loader or back hoe?
Or should we just consider buying or renting some kind of heavy duty roto tiller? That might make the work more manual and slow, but if it's as satisfying as the DR work has been, we don't mind. It seems like the main benefit of some kind of walk behind tiller would be that we could work around rocks and such.
Thanks to anyone who has read this far and is willing to share ideas or comments.
Best,
Dan
Where abouts are you located?
