Gardening: equipment and planning

[stritle]

I have a couple of questions as I plan my first large scale (3/4 acre) garden:

1. How much do you plant? I plan on storing most of what I grow for winter use to feed my family of 6.

2. I have a 1450 with a tiller and a 782 to play in the garden with. What equipment do you have, or have you built to assist with your garden? (Lonny, you'll have fun with this)

3.Individual beds, or till everything and plant traditinally? I plan on putting tilling beds two tiller passes wide with about 4 feet of grass in between each bed.

Thanks!

 

[fcurrier]

That's a BIG garden! (football field size)? 4' of grass between each bed would take up a lot of it, but how do you till a raised bed? I think I'd be tilling your grass area, planting in conventional rows and hoping someone would weed where I wasn't tilling. A good tiller is a wonderful thing. Weeding sux.

 

[stritle]

I have 6 acres to play with, so spreading out is easy. The beds won't start out raised, but will end up raised after a couple of years of manure and straw/leaves, etc. The reason I chose 4' is so I can drive my 782 down the path to mow. I could do 29" grass strips and use the push mower, but someday I will get old and the kids will all be gone.

The goal with the grass is to keep feet off of the beds.

Yeah, I love to garden, but haven't lived anywhere that I could have one for 14 years. Now I can and I can't wait.

Eventually my 6 acres will be used for production for farmers markets and such. I hope to build a planter and put in 1 acre of sweet corn, as $4.00 per dozen at 25,000 ears per acre is rather attractive profit! When a loaf of home made bread goes for $5.00 at a farmers market, I can't pass up the chance! This year is the test to see what all I can be succesful at. Hopefully larger production will follow, all farmed with a 782 and a 1450.

 

[lbaker]

Steve- Hope you have a catcher for that grass! Think I would start saving newspaper now for use as mulch. Works great vs weeds. We stopped planting corn- racoons-. Good luck!!

 

[lbuttke]

Steve,
The answer to your first question depends on the size of your garden, and how much seed you have or purchased.
The equipment needed depends on what you have and or can get or build.
I have a small pile of equipment to use for gardening.

along with other pices of equipment not shown, such as a spring tooth drag, a spike tooth drag, a culti-pack roller, ect.

I would recomend planting straight rows wide enough apart to work the soil inbetween the rows to keep the weeds down, a grass stip between the rows will only make more work cleaning the grass clipping away from the plants and also draw needed moisture away from the plants to keep the grass growing.

The size of the garden all depends on how much land you have to use.

I started out with 4 acres of land and have a 1/2 acre garden.
I got another 29.9 acres of land this year and now have another 4 acres of tillable land for garden space if needed.
I am thinking of putting 3 acres of corn next year.

 

[wshytle]

Steve-

Get ready to sweat. I have had grass between the rows in my garden before. It is a good surface to walk while harvesting but the draw back is mowing the grass. When mowing the clippings are thrown right into the wanted plants and can really make a mess, especially with things like cabbage. I guess one could mulch the grass; I've not tried that. A cultivator like a farmall cub
is a sweet way to control weeds. Our cubs don't have the belly clearance and are best used between the rows, not over like the farmall. It would also be a good idea to have the soil tested. Here in NC it is still a free service from the ag. extention agency. It's a bad feeling when a garden starts and you find later the soil is lacking. Then there's bug control. We have things like cut worms and potato bugs that can ruin your efforts. And don't forget the deer. They usually stop by every night to see how your garden is coming along. We also have mosquitos big enough to screw a turkey buzzard standing flat footed. They seem to know when it's time for garden work like early morning or late afternoon to stay cool as possible.

Gardening is one of those things in life that can pay big or provide dissappointment. It is satisfying in several ways, especially at the table and a great place to think and contemplate.

One last suggestion, find a farmer in the area that knows the area. It can be a great time saver. He's been there, knows the soil, and knows when and what to plant.

Good luck and I hope your freezer is filled next year by this time.

Wayne

 

[kide]

Wayne:
So is that why all the turkey buzzards were running around on tiptoes when we were down that way last year?? That's plain funny!!!

I've been trying for years to get the folks that own the acreage behind us to sell us a couple acres - don't know why I want to feed the deer though. Steve - if you really want the grass strips, maybe you'll need a tracvac to pick up the mown grass..and when you look at the price of the corn at market, don't forget the overhead that goes into producing it - that $4.00/dozen gets eaten away, too..

 

[lhinds]

Steve; What works for you is what is best i guess. This is what I do. I have found that a turning plow in the fall is your best friend in gardening. When getting ready to plant in the spring use your tiller to plow the ground. Make 48" rows so you can use the tiller for weed and grass control. You can hoe the plants with the tiller until they get to big to get between the rows. Then take the outside tines off your tiller and continue using it. I use roundup to control weeds before i plow in the fall and spring. The cub cadet and tiller has taken about 50% of the work out of gardening for us. If your ground is level the tiller works perfect. If it isn't you will be covering the plants on the lower side and taking the dirt away on the upper side. In this case we make our rows up and down the hill. I have disc and cultivators but never use them. I have a tiller on a 1250 and it doesn't work real well in my garden because i can't regulate speed. It grabs a small rock or hard dirt and lunges. I have one on my 124 with creeper, and that is the perfect gardening tool.
Hope this all makes sense. Just my 02c
Luther

 

[jmuncie]

I'll agree with everyone else's comments about the grass getting blown into the rows. It can bury young plants and it's no fun trying to clean grass clippings from salad greens. I've gardened on as much as a half acre. Now we're down to about 1/10 acre, but producing as much or more with less effort. We're planting closer and going vertical as much as we can. I may end up moving the melons and squash to a different area next year because they do invade everything else with the tighter garden arrangement.

I haven't had much luck with Cub Cadet primary tillage equipment, probably because I have heavy clay. A Cadet will hardly pull a moldboard here, and I'm okay with that because I shouldn't be using one anyway. It's amazing how fast they'll create hardpan. I used it once--never again. The Brinly discs barely break the surface unless I've got enough weight on them that I'm way past the point of being able to lift them with the sleeve hitch.

My tiller hasn't impressed me yet, but that's primarily because I have it mounted on a 123 that won't maintain a steady speed. It will be on the 126 next spring. So far, my BCS is faster and does a much better job.

The Brinly cultivators work very well for corn, bush beans, and other row crops once you get them set up properly. It just hasn't been worth taking the time to mount to the tractor for the little bit I need it these days.

My favorite garden tool for the Cub Cadets is my Trac Vac. We mulch heavily. I've been using alfalfa as a garden mulch for about 6 years now. I maintain 1/4 acre of alfalfa just for mulch. Before the Trac Vac, we had been cutting it with a sickle bar and hand raking. Now I cut it with the Cub Cadet and vacuum as I go. Once plants are big enough to see, we start mulching and never cultivate again. A 6-10" layer of mulch does a pretty good job of suppressing weeds, eliminating erosion, and retaining moisture. I also use grass clippings and leaves. So far we haven't had any problems with the high nitrogen mulch--probably because we don't incorporate it. We did have trouble a few years ago with a heavy leaf mulch--potatoes tasted like oak leaves.

I'm wanting to start experimenting with minimim-tillage or no-till in heavy mulch. That may involve narrow strip tillage (6-8" wide). I have a spare Cub Cadet tiller now to experiment with.

I also plan to build some hilling & furrowing attachments, a planter, sub-soiler, and maybe a disc-plow for breaking new ground.

BTW, Squash, gourds, and hairy vetch are all good raccoon and deer deterrents in the corn patch. It was recommended to me. This year we had gourds running rampant through our corn and the deer didn't bother it. Supposedly deer and raccoons don't like to walk through thick vines.

Jerry

 

[bbrigham]

I can't imagine what their offspring must be like. I have smartened up, I sit sideways if I'm eating at the computer anymore. I only had to change again this morning instead of taking the keyboard apart to get the cereal out of it

 

[kmcconaughey]

The best deer deterrent that I have found is a product called Plot Saver, it works great! I bought the kit two years ago and for the first time in many many years I had no deer damage. It's easy to setup and use. For info on it just do a web search for Plot Saver. I used to put up that 7' tall deer netting around the garden but the deer learned that they could jump through it. It was a lot of work to set up and tear down and eventually it didn't work.

Grass clippings make a great mulch, it's best to let the clippings dry for a day or so before you place it around tender plants though as it can start to compost and heat up burning the plants. Not sure if you plan on growing tomatoes or peppers if you do I recommend plastic mulch, it retains soil moisture, suppresses weeds and it prevents soil contact on the leaves which reduces soil borne disease. To protect my tomatoes and pepper plants from cut worms I used to save up paper milk cartons and cut collars to place around the plants, that was too much work. One year I bought several lengths of 4" square PVC down spout tubing and cut it into 2" lengths for reusable collars. To store them I slide them onto 8' long 2"x2" and hang them in the shed on some shelf supports. Note the garlic drying racks below the shelf supports.

Don't waste your money on commercial tomato cages, they don't work that well, especially if you grow indeterminate varieties. Instead, make your own out of concrete reinforcing mesh. With the bottom wire cut off it leaves 6" long spikes that hold the cage up and hold the plastic mulch down. The 6" openings are large enough to reach through to pick the tomatoes. For determinate varieties I cut the cages in half and get more cages. They also work great as a temporary fence around my winter garlic beds to keep the deer from walking through the beds. Here's some photos from before I started to use the plot saver.

I use a rear tine tiler to prep the soil in the spring and fall and to till in compost. I like raised beds for the garlic, herbs, lettuce and so on. Close spacing conserves water and helps suppress weeds. Note the close spacing on the lettuce beds, once the lettuce gets to this size it shades out the weeds. Sigh, looking at my garden photos this time of year is making me hungry for fresh veggies.

 

[lhinds]

My brother and me have a great time with the garden. We give more away than we sale. We also plant our potato patch with greens after the potato harvest. This fall we had about 50 people getting the free greens, Mustard, Turnips, kale, collards, radishes. In january or Feburary we plow all the left overs under. Last season we planted 50# left over potatoes and harvested 30 bushel of very nice potatoes. We do very little with mulch because of mold. Corn, potatoes, Greens, and beans is our best crops.

We are both retired and this is a good pasttime for us. My brother could not believe the work a cub cadet could do.

 

[kmcconaughey]

Luther, is that your scare crow or the chief corn picker?

 

[lhinds]

That is my scare crow and #1 tractor driver. The 128 has a loud exhaust on it so he said that was his. He drives fast idle 1st. gear until he goes to sleep.

 

[lhinds]

Wayne; Most of the potatoe bugs can be taken care of by using spinosad. I found that our potatoe bugs are actually a Collardo Beetle, So i googled that and came up with collorodo potatoe beetle beater with Spinosad. This stuff really works for most bugs. The key to using this or any other bug control is spraying the underside of the leaves. Hope this helps.
Luther

 

[lhinds]

I really had a good cub day yesterday. Got to try the 102 and it performed like a champ. Plowed the garden,then the greens patch. Had to put chains on because the ground was so hard. Had about 3 hours seat time and loved it. My brother was amazed with the performance of the 102 and turning plow.

This is about 1/2 of what i plowed.