Subject: [permaculture] Farm equipment - equipment recommendations for raised bed farming
Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 03:56:36 -0500
A quick sourcelist for the machines and implements:
Tractor: a 70 hp tractor is required to pull the hiller-bedder I use
- nothing less will work and though there are smaller hiller-bedders none
will make a bed as tall and wide as the
Roll-A-Cone I own - I have a Joghn Deere 3020 diesel with category 2 three
point hitch - if you can get one of these
tractors you will have a fine machine you can keep running indefinitely
Hiller Bedder:
Roll-A-Cone (Roll-A-Cone Mfg., Tulia Texas) one row hiller bedder on double
8' toolbars (one front, one back) with Cat 2
3 point hitch - this hiller has their smooth edge 26" disks (the biggest they
offer) - I added 4 chisel plow tines from
R-A-C mounted side by side on the front toolbar between the disks
Tillage tool - not necessarily needed but very useful early on in your soil
building program and bed prep
Tractor-mounted rototiller: Best bet: Howard Rotavator, 60" width (optimum
width)
Subsoiler: John Deere category-2 long shank, single shank, subsoiler
Yeomans Plow: Three Yeomans plows mounted side by side on a Roll-A-Cone
custom built single 8' toolbar for category-2 3
point hitch - the Yeomans plow syste is available from Market Farm Implement
in Friedans Pennsylvanis.
Moldboard plow:
Ford Model 101, 3 bottom, turning, trip-bottom plow - this plow will turn
turf 360 degrees thus burying all plant
material to rot not regenerate to become a weed problem the next year
John Deere 3 bottom, trip bottom, moldboard plow - an excellent 3 bottom plow
-the Ford and JD plows should be inexpensive in used condition - they are
vintage implements
You don't really need a disk harrow as it will not become part of your annual
soil maintenance program
The basic array of implements always used:
Yeomans plow
Howard rotavator
Roll-A-Cone hiller bedder