Hot one

[JCodd]

Decided to start getting the food plot ready. My wife had the weekend off and I don't care anything about being at the hunting grounds by myself on a tractor. Had a sitter lined up for the baby and we headed out. The tractor is at my mother in laws and my hunting grounds is a few miles away. Get there and the tires are low on the tractor. Air compressor is at my house 45 minutes away lol. Ended up in byrdstown looking for one. Cheapest one I found was over $100. Decided if I'm gonna pay that I'll go to lowes and get a big one. Talked it over with the wife and decided she would go home while I mow the MIL yard. Good grief. Sharing a mower is getting old lol. The running it back and forth I'm ok with. Doesn't bother me much. But her yard is thick and grows like it's had triple 19 dumped on it. Mowed it last week and it was just as bad this week. Had to crawl thru it lol. Got almost done with everything on the front and outside of her fenced in backyard and broke the deck belt. 3rd one this year. That's getting old. Finally the woman showed up with the compressor and we got ready. Headed to the farm. Added on to what I planted last year. Opened my lanes up a bit. Realized how nice it would be to have a cab tractor after going thru all the blackberry bushes and getting my legs burnt. Woman said I shoulda wore britches but at 95 I'll take skinned legs. Hoping to spray in a few weeks and plant on or around Labor Day. Other than weeds the food plot was in fair shape. Adding on was a pain. It's mostly hillside and I know it has several little banks. But with weeds and briars 7-10 foot tall I have no idea where they are lol. And groundhog holes bother me a bit as well. November can't get here soon enough.


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[sdw]

That's a long day in this kind of heat

[JCodd]

Wish I had took some pictures. Amazing what a little time with a tractor can do for a place. I need to break down and do all of it this winter. It hasn't been touched other than the foodplot and road coming in in several years now.


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[MUP]

I believe I'll stick with the briars and browse on my place! It got up to 97 here I reckon!

[caretaker]

Yep, gotta love it when the lawn mower breaks a belt. I had an old craftsman that would wait until I was on the steepest slope and not break but slip the drive belt off. After every season me and the guys talk up how we wanna put in food plots and different things. So far so good after several years we are still in the discussing and planning stage. Now don`t rush us we have put out some ladder stands and built two shacks. Seeing as how none of us owns a tractor,a bush hog, or even a lil mantis tiller it don`t look like it`s gonna be a front burner project anytime soon. I do applaud and commend you for doing what we are still in the talking stages of doing.

[BSK]

Without real agricultural equipment, for years I've just been planting half-hearted fall food plots using the mow-spray-broadcast technique. Of course that system limits what plants can be planted (small-seeded plants that will germinate even when broadcast onto unbroken ground).

However, one of my BIL bought a nice John Deere 3032E 4x4 tractor with rotary tiller. Wow, will that thing chew through even our rockiest plots! We're finally going to be able to plant any seeds we want. That should improve our plot production quite a bit.

This spring, we planted summer plots for the first time in many years. Production was only so-so due to first time breaking ground in more than a decade, but with a couple more turnings, the soil will rapidly improve.

[JCodd]

For the past few years I've just bushhogged and disked. Last year I added spraying. Spraying has made a big difference but weeds overtook my clover this year. Wishing I had sprayed my clover earlier this year. I also doubled the plot this time. Hopefully in the next couple years it'll be easier with my prepping. I would like to till my ground but it's a no go. Best I can do is disk but it's working. Looking at doing a wheat field and possibly mix in some peas. In my clover last year I planted turnips but the deer never touched them


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[BSK]

JCodd,

You wouldn't believe what a difference seasonal timing makes when it comes to turning tough ground. The "soil" in my plots--and I use that term loosely because most of it is just chert rock--becomes concrete-hard in summer. Even a chisel plow won't really break it. But our new rotary tiller chewed right through it late in the spring (April) when the soil was still wet deep down from winter rains. I'm hoping the deep turning in spring will make the ground turnable in late August for fall plots.

[JCodd]

I have plows and tillers but my parents don't want the ground turned being on a hillside. I get by disking but I try to do it after a rain or during a rain. If I was allowed to turn the ground I'm sure I'd make leaps and bounds over what I'm doing


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[BSK]

Gotcha JCodd. Terrain/slope is definitely a consideration.