[Tina Turkey]

Hi folks, for the last 10 years we have produced our veg etc mainly in veg beds around the house but we recently aquired 1 hectare of arable land next door.  We plan to chop it into a couple of areas to be used for growing veg, fodder for animals etc.

We have an old Massey 240 and an old plough and have ploughed about a quarter of the area but we are a bit stick now as to how to to break down the clods made by the plough.  We have asked the farmers around but all their rotovators etc are for their huge tractors and too big for ours.  Second hand rotovators cost a fortune, whereas there seems to be quite a few second hand spring harrows for sale around that are not too expensive (the ones with the curly metal springs with teeth).

My question .... if I ever get there ! ..... is can we plough and then run the harrow over it to break down to a tilth or do we need to rotovate it as well?

Any advise on how to prepare soil with a smallish (not micro) tractor and not much equipment would be really appreciated.

Thanks
TT

[jaykay]

The traditional way is to plough in autumn and let the frost break up the clods.

I don't know whether a harrow would work, sorry.

[suziequeue]

Dear Tina

Plough then rotavate IMHO

We are in a similar situation (see thread in vegetables). We have decided to turn our middle field over to horticulture and ploughed it last winter. Even though we had a relatively mild  winter the clods really did break up.

We have just started rotavating it with a two wheel tractor with rotavating attachment which has been very successful. My husband was talking about getting the field harrowed but:

a) I didn't want another great big tractor all over the field again - taking most of the topsoil away on its wheels and compressing the soil, and
b) I didn't want to wait until the ground was dry enough for a tractor to go on there without making it look like the Somme afterwards!

DH has worked really hard with the rotavator and now he is raking the rotavated topsoil off the paths and onto the beds to raise them slightly. We are probably going to spend the rest of the summer preparing the beds (because we are perfectionists and amateurs!) but - boy - it looks great evn now.

If I wasn't doing this on my iPad I'd send pix

[henchard]

Depends how 'strong' (clayey) the land is. Light land can just be ploughed and broken down with tools like spring tine cultivators and harrows. Strong land needs more work. Power harrows and Rotavators are a one pass solution but of course these haven't always existed and it can be done with other tools. Disc cultivators are mostly used to chop up big clods followed by tine cultivators and harrows (Zig zag harrows being better than chain harrows for breaking down land). Sometimes small clods are rolled with a Cambridge roll (not a flat roll) to break them up.

The key thing with strong land is getting timing right - i.e. not when it is too wet or when it has dried 'rock' hard.

[suziequeue]

Couldn't agree more with Henchard.

We have heavy clay soil.... and plenty of rain!!...... but I am undaunted 

I would rather be working to improve a clay soil than a sandy soil. At least the clay retains things (including the odd wellington boot at times!!)

[robert waddell]

working land is very difficult especially for armatures     clay heavy or stiff soils need more work and attention than light sandy soils      if the soil is sticking to the wheels it is to wet get out and leave alone you are only damaging the soil structure       ploughed land left to break down with the frost can be easily worked with light harrows     triple K cultivators are for stiffer ground     discs are for clay based soils and fresh ploughed land and grass fields that have been ploughed  also used for burying trash after harvest       rotovating is for a very fine seed bed or for drilling before turnips or potatoes       the best test for suitability for working land is your boot if you kick the soil and it sticks to the toe of your boot it is not right for working

[SteveHants]

Couldn't you disc it?

[Small Farmer]

Answering the original question a spring tine harrow is not the right tool for this job - its for weeding or raking out dead vegetation.  A chain harrow would work on light soil but we've got clay, so as Robert says you plough in the winter and hope for some heavy frost to break up the clumps. 

An angled disc harrow would do the job well but they're hard to find.  It's a great deal easier to find 2nd hand ploughs than disc harrows, and new ones are fearsomely expensive because they need a lot of steel in them.  Small farmers around here are those under 1,000 acres so all the farming kit is ridiculously large from the point of view of anyone with a a couple of acres.  I saw a splendid device at the dealer this morning while buying fence posts.  It was an angled disk harrow combined with a Cambridge roller.  Trouble was it took five minutes to walk round it and weighs more than my house.

You might be able to hire a rotovator attachment for your tractor.  Not from a tractor dealer but from a groundcare business.  It's certainly possible near me in Bedfordshire.  The rotovator will do in one pass what will take several runs with a disc harrow.

By the way as long as you can avoid cringing at the English there's a lot of useful stuff on YouTube from US garden equipment dealers showing how to use small farm kit.