Gonna try to start spring plowing
 

Will see how the ground is.

My man, you live in a different world than I! ;)

It is 12 degrees - pretty nice for this winter - but a stiff south wind, typically they are warmer but the cold is so bad this year, the wind is cold.

We have a blizzard warning for tomorrow, up to 50mph winds, with a little bit of snow. Winds should be form 3am to 6pm Thursday.

Waiting for the frost to come out of the ground, the snow to melt, it will be second week of April befor we can plan to put any metal in any dirt around here.

I haven't seen loose dirt of any kind since the freeze up right around Thanksgiving.

How different you and I have to approach things to make our way through this farming adventure, with the different climates.

Paul

Gonna try to start winter plowing

Believe that would be snowplowing. 30" of frost here - doesn't make for clean furrows

Show off,,,,
Just where in this world are you located?
You sure got the attention of us Northern people

It seems to me in your area you are still getting down to below freezing at night and will be for a while, so what is the point of doing this when you may have to spend the money to do it again??

I do not know about Oklahoma where Bill lives, but here in Kansas it is a moisture thing.

If you do not plow as soon as the soil is dry enough then it might rain and be too muddy. During some wet springs you do not get many chances to plow, so everybody works the soil ASAP!

Also, if you do not plant early enough then the summer dryness might hurt the plants.

I avoided the problem for years by not plowing or tilling, but this year we are expanding the garden and nothing kills grass like tilling. The ground is frozen right now but we will till as soon as the soil can be worked.

I worked my garden last weekend. My tractor had issues and I just got it running again and I am behind.

But, The 1/4 acre is ready and we'll start planting some stuff this weekend and I am expanding it to 1/2 acre so I can plant more corn and potatoes this year.

Hope springs eternal...

I'm in Maryland, and my daffodils are poking through the ground already. Here's hoping for an early spring.

Truth be known, daffodils are known liars.:thumb:

Here is a photo from last April, not too far from me. So far this winter has been a bit colder.

Meteorologists here are saying there's a Siberian Express coming that's crossing over the Arctic and will be moving south down the middle of North America over the next three weeks and will hit as far south as Texas by the first week of February.

I hope you are right, I have a hog killin' waiting on a cold spell of at least 2 days. This one'll probably come mid week tho.

I'm hoping to start tilling mine very soon. Want to get some old leaves and straw turned in. Also have another plot of ground I want to expand into and want to till it up a couple of times before planting time. Living in the deep South does have a few advantages!

I can only drool as I look at seed catalogs. My gardens are buried under several feet of snow. In many years it's dicey planting anything (other than cold weather veggies) before Memorial Day.

U got it right Terri. Theres a window of opportunity early. Sometimes way early. IF the plowing isn't done by then, then the rains start. After that, Theres times when I can disc, but not plowing. BY the time, then that I can plow, green grass has started growing, I have to fight depressions in my bottom ground that holds water longer than. They may only be say 5ft wide, and 20ft long, and there might only be around 5 of them, but they got to be worked same as the rest. Its much better to get it plowed when its possible to do so,

I don't plow, but if I did, I would be waiting until sometime in May.

Here in NW MS it's so wet we'd probably never see our tractor again if we tried to plow. It would start sinking and soon be out of sight, never to resurface again!

I'm sorry, I can't hear you....I have mud in my ears. ;)

Wait, I thought you were going to move?

we have feet of snow over solidly frozen ground

Got close to 5a plowed today. It plowed hard tho. Tried something new to me
My fields rectangular, N to SZ. 10 acres. Nearly flat. I started out by starting around the field from around 40ft plowing my way to the outside of the field. I made gentle curves at the corners. When I got the E and W sides all plowed to the edge, I started finishing out the corners. Likely didn't trip the plow 2 doz times doing that.

Them I started up around 100ft from where I had plowed into the field from the W side and went round and round till I finished it out.

I didn't used the brakes a doz times. Id pull out at either end with the plow on already plowed ground, and make a easy gentle turn out of and back into the furrows.

When the 2 furrows got within 20ft and I had to use the brakes to make the turns into the furrow, I jumped up another 100ft and started opening up another section. Id make a run down the new strip then fold back into the narrow strip and take out 2 furrows un til I got the thin strip plowed out.

As I said, I didn't touch the brakes once I got started plowing out the initial strip, and I didn't touch the trip rope for over 4hrs, as, in turning, the plow was in already plowed ground so leaving it tripped in the ground didn't hurt it, AND I make wide curves at the end till I got close to finishing out the strip.

Saved tripping in and out likely a couple hundred times. Feel LOTS better physically than I have on the first days plowing in 30yrs.

Bill, are you flat breaking or bedding ?

LJ Ive been trying to move for going into my 3rd year. I might as well get the place put in hay in case I don't do so this year.

B I don't know what bedding implys here in plowing, I know that in some places plowing is refered to as breaking, so I would guess that's what Im doing.

I think if I were going to do big boy farming out in the mid-west, I'd switch to a no till drill. Even down here it is the best way for me to get grass/cover crops growing in the hay fields and pasture.

Are you plowing with the H? What plow do you use? Wish I could be there, I LOVE to plow. Get er done....James

I'm seriously lokking at going no till. A lot of time and moisture savings not having to work the ground. Possability here to slip in an extra crop once in a while, also.

Yup, 48 H and Steel wheel, little Genius plow, rope trip. I love it too. Especially now that I quit having to trip the plow in and out at every rpund

I can rent a drill for $10 per acre here, which doesn't seem too bad. The yield is so much better/quicker.

what you call plowing I always heard as flat breaking. Bedding was putting up rows for row crops.

But in my area every one also plowed their corn, milo and cotton, meaning cultivating.

As to your last Bobby. Same here. When that was done it was said we had laid by the corn.
Ground really lived up to the term breaking today, as I knew it would. I havnt plowed it in 3. We had 2 drouth years which I didn't farm. I disced it 4 times last year and sowed it. ITs hard now, especially from mid way on East it has always been harder. I had the handles both set up[ to 2 notches from the top.

That adds up to a payment on one pretty quick, and my old drills are pretty well wore out.

I was finishing up this afternoon when I hit a root underground, an d I think the share stuck in it. I backed up, trippedit out and back in over it and went on. I was in a area to then far east that I knew would /should plow harder. Soon I was just skimming the surface. This was in an area that was around 50ft by 100ft. I thought id do the best I could and let it go a month and hope it would catch water, and I could hit it again in a month. I went up to start on a adjoining 2acres, and it should have plowed easy, but it did the same thing, so I knew I had trouble with the plow. Took it up to the shed, and killed the tractor. Looked, and saw that, likely, the share stuck into the root. When I backed off of it, that pulled the front part of the share a couple inches ahead of the moldboard. That gap filled with dirt and pushed the share into the rolling cutter, and that ended that.
I tried to take the bolt with the big eye on it to loosenbut it wouldn't. I sprayed it, and figured id get it fixed Monday. I did chores, and laid around ect for a couple hours, when I realized I had another plow. So, I hooked p the Case and went back right at sun set. I had to adjust it. The IHC plow is set at the top of the notches I had to take the Case so that it was near the lower end. Finally got it squared away and finished out the strip. Plowed out the S end on the 2 and when I got up to the barn yard, it wouldn't trip out so I left it there.

Bill and I live in N.E. Oklahoma. A few days after it warmed up from 0 degrees the temps got up to 70 degrees. I was shore wishin I had a bag of seed taters, I would have planted them in the ground. So I can understand why Bill is wanting to plow so early!

Knowing Badger, he's probably already got taters coming up!!!!

Ive got mine bought. Ill have them Thurs as the signs right then. I need to get them cut up so theyl scab over by then.

Moldboard plowing! I have a set of those to decorate my yard... you must have heavy soil and organic matter to spare...

Around here it's been so crazily warm that the snow is nearly gone and you could probably make some dents in the soil with a disc if you wanted to. But that would be an incredibly dumb idea! Waiting for April/May as well!

sandy loam and it a cut off hay field of Sudan Grass

Yeah nothing breaks sod like moldboards. I kind of want to try the old set to make a new garden plot. I'm surprised anyone still uses them though as they destroy most of the organic matter you built with the grass and risk creating a plow pan.
Maybe things are different for us as we are in a conservation tillage area, and if you aren't using no-till you are using bladed cultivators in cropland or breaking sod with a heavy disc.

I busted up one for sure, maybe 2 plow pans in my bottom ground. Took several years.
I don't know whether it was
#1 That I hadn't plowed the ground for 3yrs
#2 That I just disced 4 times instead of plowing last year
#3 That we had 2yrs of drouth and heat
#4 All of the above The last time I plowed it it plowed the best it had in 30yrs