To Plow and disc? Or to rototill?

[Daron1965 644]

Im in the process of getting my 312-8 ready for gardening next spring.  I plan on doing two gardens, one approx 25ft x 30ft, and another 30ft x 50ft.  I want to turn the soil over soon, and add some manure to it, and turn it in every once in a while over the winter (good excuse for seat time).  I am in the process of ordering the rockshaft and cable.

 

My question to all of the expert gardening people is:

 

Would you buy a single bottom plow and disc set, or try and find a tiller for the back? This ground has NOT been touched in 10 plus years?

 

Any other ideas would be appreciated.

 

 

[WVHillbilly520H 10,373]

IMHO, if it hasn't been touched in that long, plow and disc first then tiller, if you decide only on a tiller it'll be a bucking bronco (pun intended) 'til you get it worked over where as plowing/discing/cultivating then tilling will be much easier on you and your horse, Jeff.

[KC9KAS 4,741]

Plow, disc, manure now, wait till spring disc and or till.

[953 nut 55,229]

Jeff is correct. Unless you have very sandy soil the tiller will not do well with virgin ground. I would suggest plowing and then plowing a second time at a right angle to the first time. Add the manure and later in the fall plow it in and seed the garden with annual rye grass. The grass cover crop will beneficial in several ways. Read this information.

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/cover-crops/planting-annual-ryegrass.htm

[Daron1965 644]

Thank you all,  I just picked up a 10 inch moldboard plow, and will be plowing the area up within a few weeks.  I do plan on plowing it up, discing it, spreading manure, letting it set a little, and then dicing it a few times.

[Dakota8338 115]

On 8/18/2018 at 9:10 AM, Daron1965 said:

My question to all of the expert gardening people is:

 

Would you buy a single bottom plow and disc set, or try and find a tiller for the back? This ground has NOT been touched in 10 plus years?

 

Any other ideas would be appreciated.

 

Maybe a little late to the discussion, but when I purchased my original C141 Wheel Horse, in 1979, I purchased with it the 12 inch turning plow, 36 inch tiller & a 42 inch mower. 

 

When preparing our garden, I used the plow to turn the soil and after a few days, I would till the plowed ground.  One pass with the tiller then provided a better pulverized with a finer soil particulate seed bed for planting, than would a half dozen passes with a set of discs in my opinion.  Naturally the type soil could have some bearing on the effectiveness of the disc, but that same factor would apply equally to the tiller.  

 

Later when we were planting larger gardens, I used the same principal with larger equipment.  Rather than using a turning plow, I used a twin pan plow with which to turn the soil, then rather than using dad's old five foot set of discs, I purchased a six foot Frontier tiller to chop & pulverize the turned soil. 

 

Others may prefer a set of discs, and when larger heaver discs are used, with or without weights, the discs do perform much better.  The smaller discs, six foot and smaller discs even with weights just have never performed that satisfactory for me personally.  However notched discs seem to perform better in my opinion than do the smooth round ones.  

 

Admittedly one's opinion is not very scientific, and our experiences vary also, but I have an old Sears David Bradley 2-Wheel Walking Tractor, along with quite a variety of implements.  Included in the implements was a single gang set of discs, and they were about as useful, as spitting in the wind, is successful.  They were about the same size as the discs sold by the Wheel Horse dealer, so after my experiences with the old David Bradley discs, I never wanted to waste my money on the small WH discs.  My opinion of the five foot set of discs dad left me is not much different, from that of the old David Bradley discs.  My FIL was a 'Cotton Farmer' and when he dropped his twelve foot set of discs, with their massive, heavy, beefy frame containing four rows of disks in the soil, they did some heavy duty cutting & turning of the soil.  Unfortunately that large equipment was even too large for use in his own garden, which was a little larger than our garden.  

 

 

[JimmyJam 542]

Question while on subject:

We have a 20'x20' in-ground garden plot that hasn't been used in 2 years at a local Community Garden. Manly weeds and some grass currently occupy the space. We have been manually using a spade to overturn a row of soil. We currently don't own a moldboard plow. We would like to use our WH Suburban 400 which has a set of discs and a set for wide spiked harrows.

Could we use them to work the garden?

 

[WVHillbilly520H 10,373]

2 hours ago, JimmyJam said:

Question while on subject:

We have a 20'x20' in-ground garden plot that hasn't been used in 2 years at a local Community Garden. Manly weeds and some grass currently occupy the space. We have been manually using a spade to overturn a row of soil. We currently don't own a moldboard plow. We would like to use our WH Suburban 400 which has a set of discs and a set for wide spiked harrows.

Could we use them to work the garden?

 

You could try them ,after mowing the weeds off and maybe spraying round up to kill it out, they may actually work the soil up then.