The Cub, Raised Beds, and those Hillers

[Eoghan]

huh! Must just be our bottom-land soils? I lost a bunch of butternut squash last year...

[Eoghan]

also out of curiosity, do you turn under the newspaper and straw each year? I worked on a veggie farm where most of the gardens were no-till "lasagna" style, and they just added more straw and compost every year.. it was interesting.. not great for everything though. legumes hated it.

[Bigschuss]

also out of curiosity, do you turn under the newspaper and straw each year? I worked on a veggie farm where most of the gardens were no-till "lasagna" style, and they just added more straw and compost every year.. it was interesting.. not great for everything though. legumes hated it.

I do. In the fall I turned everything under….disc it then hit it with my 42" tiller. I then cultipack and plant winter rye. In the spring when I disc and till there is no sign of the straw or newspaper.

[Bigschuss]

When you say "Mulch with newspaper" are you just laying sheets down between rows?

Yes, exactly. I don't go thick. Just one page at a time folded (so really the thickness of 2 sheets) with straw over that. I do this in the rows of the larger crops…squash, zucchini, cucumbers, pumpkins, etc.

[Tubby Creek Farm]

If I'm going to plant on a raised bed, I put a furrow plow/shovel on each rear tool bar behind each tire set up for 40" rows. No other attachments. Makes a beautiful raised bed in one pass.

We use hippers/hillers. I would like to see a picture of your set ip

[Tubby Creek Farm]

Here is a pic of our setip for wide beds. Although I'm thinking of building something on the rear draw bar to help shape/flatten the top of the beds



http://tubbycreekfarm.com/sites/default ... 286%29.jpg

[DickB]

Tubby Creek, I see that you have the offset hillers on your tractor. Do you prefer them over the straight shank hillers? Do they extend outward for a larger bed?

I borrowed a pair of straight shank hillers yesterday and ran a row at the bottom of the garden, permission granted for Cub to enter garden on a test basis. After that, permission granted to finish up the entire garden with the hillers. We're on to something seriously long term here.

With the fast hitch set up here, and in a rush to test the hillers, I didn't hook up anything on the rear, such as shovel nosed cultivators to kick up the tire tracks (in fact, with one end of the garden already into hand-hoed raised beds, I had to back out). But I did notice that the ball hitch, still on the hast hitch, left a depressed line on top of the raised bed. A board back there would level things, but I was thinking of handwork, with the hoe, rake. But I like the board idea lots and lots.

[Tubby Creek Farm]

Tubby Creek, I see that you have the offset hillers on your tractor. Do you prefer them over the straight shank hillers? Do they extend outward for a larger bed?

I borrowed a pair of straight shank hillers yesterday and ran a row at the bottom of the garden, permission granted for Cub to enter garden on a test basis. After that, permission granted to finish up the entire garden with the hillers. We're on to something seriously long term here.

With the fast hitch set up here, and in a rush to test the hillers, I didn't hook up anything on the rear, such as shovel nosed cultivators to kick up the tire tracks (in fact, with one end of the garden already into hand-hoed raised beds, I had to back out). But I did notice that the ball hitch, still on the hast hitch, left a depressed line on top of the raised bed. A board back there would level things, but I was thinking of handwork, with the hoe, rake. But I like the board idea lots and lots.

The offset allow us a really wide bed. Rear tires are at 48"centers I believe. So our beds are nearly 44" wide.

I like the idea of the board I'm even thinking moking up and trying a plywood form that floats on under the drawbar.

[ScottyD'sdad]

Agri Supply #33132, 12 inch, 16 inch straight shank, $27.95 each. Made in China, but chances of finding USA made, are slim. Cheap, and work for me!
Ed

[DickB]

My fascination with the Cub with hillers continues. My Cub made enough passes in the garden with the loaner hillers that I now know that they work for our soil and garden conditions, and that the wife finds the outcome enjoyable and minimally disruptive in the garden. As soon as the land dries out I plan to carry on, but I'd like to experiment with 2 sets of hillers on the Cub. I don't know if the Cub has enough power to run 2 sets, and if it doesn't, then I'll set up for two passes with one set of outboard hillers first, then the second set inboard. This is based on an article in a recent MOFGA newspaper:

http://www.mofga.org/Portals/2/Fact%20S ... %20WEB.pdf

The idea, as I gather it in, is to reform the garden surface to enhance water evaporation and warming of the garden soil in a global warming world. The tractor they used (32 hp, and a tire-to-tire spread of 52") is larger than the Cub. We are decidedly, at 9 or 10hp, a bit underpowered for 2 sets of hillers but, at 48" for tire settings we're not far off from their 52". They are getting 2 sets of hilled areas under the tractor per pass. While they don't care for the simple raised bed, what they're doing, as I see it, is to make a raised bed with a walkway in the middle of it. My armchair concept of how the Cub can do this, if it takes multiple passes, is to create a wide raised bed using offset hillers set up in front of the rear tires; and to come back down the row with straight shank hillers set up in the middle (perhaps not set as deeply as would be the outboard offset hillers) for the middle placed "V".

I'm waiting for sun, drying out of soil, and I'm a bit pressed for time for getting the rest of the garden in.

[dmacarthur]

as for what to attach to the back of the tractor while hilling with the discs, I have an oak plank about 16" wide by about 4 feet long that I just sort of hinged onto the drawbar with some u- bolts, and a chain running up to the top link of the TC lifter. So it hinges up and down with the hillers. On the back of the oak plank I screwed some extra blocks to mark either one, 2 or 3 rows, so I can lower the plank, which flattens the beds out nicely, and have marks in the top of the bed for seeding in the correct row spacing. Cheap but effective....

[Jack]

What size disc would you all recommend 12" or. 14"