Weekend Ploughing
Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 8:58 am
Spent the weekend muck spreading and ploughing the piece of land we are going to plant pumpkins and squashes on this year. You may remember the post and pictures about the stuck digger when I opened up the old ditch earlier this year, well things have changed a bit. Now the land is as hard as concrete!
We spent Saturday morning putting a good coat of well rotted muck all over the plot. My friend Colin came along with his 4610 and the Howard Rotospreader. I loaded the spreader with Harriet my TE20 and loader.
Just a side point, Harriet has been spluttering and misfiring for a little while now, I have changed valves, carburettor, points, coil, condenser and manifold. All to no avail so I have been putting up with it. On Saturday, the only petrol I had was 97 octane unleaded. Put that in and low and behold I have a perfect running tractor.
When all the muck was spread I put Nuffy on the plough. Colin had an SKF two furrow reversible he wanted to try so we put that on for a start. It would not go into the ground no matter what we tried. the points were a bit worn but it had ploughed a few days earlier OK. Still we decided that it was not good enough so that was put away and my Ransomes TS82 was hitched up.
This was no better and even with the top link shortened to get the points of the shares into the ground, the plough still rode out and jumped all over the place.
Time to try the third option! The single furrow deep digger that usually goes behind Henrietta. We hitched on to this and it penetrated below the hard furrow pan, shattering it and turning in the muck so off we went.
There were times when I thought that Nuffy needed another 65 hp as I ploughed. Sometimes she would come to a dead stop. This was the field that I had a problem getting around on with the four wheel drive digger a few months ago. Funny how conditions change.
It took me until 5pm on Saturday to get halfway across the plot taking a 14" wide furrow at 16" deep but the time was worth it. The drainage should be greatly improved with the new ditch and the broken pan. I finally finished the plot at lunchtime on Sunday.
.
This is the plough point after halfway. It was new when I started!!
This was the reason I had to stop on Saturday as I did not have another point with me. New one for comparison.
We spent Saturday morning putting a good coat of well rotted muck all over the plot. My friend Colin came along with his 4610 and the Howard Rotospreader. I loaded the spreader with Harriet my TE20 and loader.
Just a side point, Harriet has been spluttering and misfiring for a little while now, I have changed valves, carburettor, points, coil, condenser and manifold. All to no avail so I have been putting up with it. On Saturday, the only petrol I had was 97 octane unleaded. Put that in and low and behold I have a perfect running tractor.
When all the muck was spread I put Nuffy on the plough. Colin had an SKF two furrow reversible he wanted to try so we put that on for a start. It would not go into the ground no matter what we tried. the points were a bit worn but it had ploughed a few days earlier OK. Still we decided that it was not good enough so that was put away and my Ransomes TS82 was hitched up.
This was no better and even with the top link shortened to get the points of the shares into the ground, the plough still rode out and jumped all over the place.
Time to try the third option! The single furrow deep digger that usually goes behind Henrietta. We hitched on to this and it penetrated below the hard furrow pan, shattering it and turning in the muck so off we went.
There were times when I thought that Nuffy needed another 65 hp as I ploughed. Sometimes she would come to a dead stop. This was the field that I had a problem getting around on with the four wheel drive digger a few months ago. Funny how conditions change.
It took me until 5pm on Saturday to get halfway across the plot taking a 14" wide furrow at 16" deep but the time was worth it. The drainage should be greatly improved with the new ditch and the broken pan. I finally finished the plot at lunchtime on Sunday.
.
This is the plough point after halfway. It was new when I started!!
This was the reason I had to stop on Saturday as I did not have another point with me. New one for comparison.
