Riding front tine rototiller?

[docrocky]

Hello to all: I have just come out of winter dormancy and it is time to think seriously about gardening. I have already started 40 flats of vegetables in my basement up here in NW Ohio. Last year I posted a THREAD requesting any information about a riding front tine rototiller. I put in a 1 1/2 acre garden each summer and most of the produce goes to a few church kitchens, food banks and a few friends. I have every imaginable tractor to include an Oliver 880 diesel, MF 50 diesel, MF 250 diesel, Ford 8N, as well as a Bolens QT 16 as well as 3 Cub Cadets. I have rear tine tiller for 3 or 4 of them. All these tillers measure either 36" to about 56'" tilling. Since I have turned 70+ (actually 77) I can't turn as easily to see what I am tilling and too often in the past I have taken out part of a planted row. I have every imaginable walk behind tiller but walking the 35 or so rows almost a total of 200 to 300 feet begins to wear me out. I am not talking about ground preparation with the tillers which I do with the large tractor and the 56" tiller. I am talking about weed cultivation after the plants have started.(Essentially a very shallow scraping to get the newly germinating weed:anyone::anyone::anyone:, mostly grass)I like to keep my rows spaced at 28 " and am trying to find out if anyone has run across any tiller that is front tine and is motorized by say a small garden riding mower that has a wheel base under 30"?

Last year I hooked up a small Baha scooter to the rear of a 16" Huskey and it worked in the straight or but turning to go back yp the next row was near impossible.

Any thoughts, suggestions and recommendations. Please no more discussion with Post Polio Syndrome which I opened up last year and It was informative but off the track to what i had intended.

Thank You and good farming and gardening...RockyDocky

 

[motownbrowne]

What about a Allis G, or a Farmall Cub, A, Super A, or 140? I think they are pretty much designed for the type of cultivation you're talking about. Maybe with a rolling basket weeder. Might be able to get a nice setup for 2-5k. I guess that's a little more than rigging something up, but I think you'd end up with a better tool.

Let us know what you come up with.

 

[Jeembawb]

Hello to all: I have just come out of winter dormancy and it is time to think seriously about gardening. I have already started 40 flats of vegetables in my basement up here in NW Ohio. Last year I posted a THREAD requesting any information about a riding front tine rototiller. I put in a 1 1/2 acre garden each summer and most of the produce goes to a few church kitchens, food banks and a few friends. I have every imaginable tractor to include an Oliver 880 diesel, MF 50 diesel, MF 250 diesel, Ford 8N, as well as a Bolens QT 16 as well as 3 Cub Cadets. I have rear tine tiller for 3 or 4 of them. All these tillers measure either 36" to about 56'" tilling. Since I have turned 70+ (actually 77) I can't turn as easily to see what I am tilling and too often in the past I have taken out part of a planted row. I have every imaginable walk behind tiller but walking the 35 or so rows almost a total of 200 to 300 feet begins to wear me out. I am not talking about ground preparation with the tillers which I do with the large tractor and the 56" tiller. I am talking about weed cultivation after the plants have started.(Essentially a very shallow scraping to get the newly germinating weed:anyone::anyone::anyone:, mostly grass)I like to keep my rows spaced at 28 " and am trying to find out if anyone has run across any tiller that is front tine and is motorized by say a small garden riding mower that has a wheel base under 30"?

Last year I hooked up a small Baha scooter to the rear of a 16" Huskey and it worked in the straight or but turning to go back yp the next row was near impossible.

Any thoughts, suggestions and recommendations. Please no more discussion with Post Polio Syndrome which I opened up last year and It was informative but off the track to what i had intended.

Thank You and good farming and gardening...RockyDocky

Giddy docrocky - what about using a walk behind tiller like a gravely with a sulky to save the walking - I reckon if I could get one of them over here in oz I would make all sorts of attachments for it - meantime I am dreaming up making one out of a ride on mower or a similar to gravely self propelled slasher/ mower I have. Good luck with your quest

Jimbob

 

[docrocky]

Hello Again: I happened to be searching E-baay for a riding front tine tiller and i can across an advertisement someone had up for auction and would you believe ssme outfit made the exact thing I was interested in, but it was back in 1955.

Has anyone run across a GEORGE 3 hp GEAR DRIVE TRACTOR. It had a variety of attachments you could mount on the front of it such as a mower deck, tiller, etc.
It appeared to be manufactured in either Illinois or Missouri.

Does anyone out there know of one still in existence or in a scrap yard?

Another thought, instead of a rototiller in front, what about a simple cultivator that can be raised or lowered and shoess or tines to just barley scrape off the new weed sprouts?

Thank You

 

[motownbrowne]

Yeah, check out the cultivating tractors I mentioned. They are designed for what you are doing.

 

[Equipmentpro99]

If your just wanting to scrape the ground a little, you could build a simple weed cutter and attach it to a small garden tractor. Set it up to dig a few inches deep.

 

[docrocky]

Motownbrown: I appreciate and understand your recommendations. I do have an Allis Chalmers G which I picked up at auction last year with a hydraulic lift for the cultivators. She is a beauty. But one problem with the G as well as Farmal cubs etc. Once I get my tomatoes staked and some of the other plants start to bush out, I can't row cultivate the fresh new weeds after a good rainfall, I do have a 16', 24' and 28' walk behind tillers but I show you a picture of the row lengths I have and now at my age, I seem to be "petering out".

I bought a Snapper a few years back and dropped the mower deck. Now I am trying to figure out how to attach a cultivator with either tines or Danish sweeps that will just scratch the surface and also allow me to cam them up when turning etc.

I am illustrating with 3 pictures my problem. One shows the length of my garden running south to north. I divide sections east to west about 25 feet long with a 6 foot lane between each section. the first shows my cultivating in mid June with the AC G and a close up. She does a beautiful job. But the next shot taken about 2 weeks later shows if I let that grass get up more than a a few days after a rain, look out, it takes over. As the corn gets too tall, the AC G is too low for the new stalks. Also if I have the tomato stakes up, no chance.

Also, I am a total amateur at this and retired, so I can't afford the 2-5K machines that would be nice. All my produce goes to charity. I usually spend a few hundred bucks at auction for my machinery and then jerry rig something out of the junk to get my task done.
Thanks Again

 

[docrocky]

Equipmentpro99: Could you describe or provide a picture of a "simple weed cutter". Do you mean a mower deck set real low?
Thanks docrocky.

 

[motownbrowne]

Wow, that is a grassy stand of corn, my friend.

I understand now, I think, that you want something to cultivate between the rows, not on each side of a row which the machine would straddle, like the G.

What kind of grass is that you have? I'm wondering if you could do more tillage for weed control prior to planting your corn, say, till, wait ten days, till, plant. Also, we use flame weeding in our corn patch, that's something to check out.

We grow about an acre of vegetables, and you're right, it is a lot of work. We are farming on the contour of a slope also, so mechanical cultivation is almost totally useless. We rely mostly on wheel hoes, swan neck hoes and diamond scuffle hoes. We do use the troy-bilt tiller for one or two cultivations of the corn, then use hoes to finish the job.

Your area looks pretty flat, so you should be able to come up with something. How about a toolbar on a riding mower? Mount some sweeps on n it, put it out front and set it to dig 3/4 of an inch. Worth a shot anyway. Also, one thing we've really found helps a lot is really being proactive when it comes to weed control. It's hard to do, but dealing with small weeds is infinitely easier than larger ones.

One last thing, try mulching your tomatoes. We use poly mulch laid by hand. Really helps with weed control, as well as soil temp and water conservation. You could use straw mulch too.

When I said 2-5k should get you a good machine, I didn't know you already had a G. Don't go get another cultivating tractor, you already have one of the best.

Good luck.

 

[Equipmentpro99]

I dont have a picture, but a weed cutter is a blade that runs under the ground a few inches. A smaller version is an attachment on a push plow, here is a link for it.
https://hosstools.com/product/12-oscillating-hoe/
I would be easy to build something similar to attach to a garden tractor.