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Gravely cultivator tool holder

16K views 36 replies 20 participants last post by  Chestnut Hollow 
#1 ·


My father was a Gravely guy for many years and did a fair amount of vegetable gardening. He never owned the cultivator tool holder like the one pictured above. He did have the rotary plow and powered cultivator though. Is the tool holder actually useful in a significant way for vegetable gardening or did it die due to the rotary cultivator's emergence?
 
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#2 ·
I use mine with the hiller attachments to hill my potatoes as they grow. It works great. A lot of times I put a furrower in the center of the left and right hillers to kick dirt from the middle to them. I also use the furrower alone to make rows for planting. It saves me a lot of work in the potatoes.
 
#5 ·
In addition to the liability lawyers nixing all of the neat attachments for the classical Gravely [like the circular saw and the chain saw], I think that the rise of "jobs that 'Americans' won't do" [or at least the mentality of "jobs that 'Americans' won't do"] had a huge impact which helped lead to the demise of the classical Gravely tractor.

How many "Americans" nowadays even bother to grow their own vegetables anymore?

Although, if Bernanke keeps inflating the currency, the old Victory Gardens might soon reappear with a vengeance...

[PS: "Americans" is in quotes because I don't want to be called a racist.]
 
#3 ·
I have one but have never used it. I've also heard several people echo what Charles said about the potatoes. I've just never taken the opportunity to set it up and try it.
 
#6 ·
My Grandad used to use one to prep rows for planting, and I believe for tilling between rows and even over very small plants. He had a big chunk of railroad rail he would pin to the top as a weight. I have the attachment but don't use it because my garden is much smaller and my rows are closer together. As a tool, it will be limited by the weight (and tractive capacity) of the Gravely. It probably won't work well at breaking sod, but will work in cultivating an already turned bed

NBS, I second what you said. In a recent two wheeler forum I said it seems like we "safety" ourselves out of a lot of good, usable equipment. I've always thought there should only be one warning decal on a machine: "Stupidity = Pain". Frills and fancy features are nice, but add cost, complexity, and maintenance headaches. There are times you want a cushy Cadillac, and times you want a Mack Truck.
 
#8 · (Edited)
it seems like we "safety" ourselves out of a lot of good, usable equipment.
There is some truth to that. Put another way, there are some people that should not own a power tool or a lawn mower.

Personally, I have come to appreciate the older well made tools and equipment. One day I am going to put a circular saw on the 5665 and make a video. It should be impressive.

Keep you pets and children inside.

Back to the tool holder. I think that for what I am going to do, the rotary cultivator is all I need. I don't know anything about potatoes. I barely know anything about growing things like green beans, radishes, lettuce and tomatoes either but it can't be that hard. I feel I am biting off a big enough chunk already.

Richard - horticulturist in training.
 
#7 ·
I have just picked up a tool holder with cultivators and I can't wait to use it! I will be using it to "cultivate" between corn rows. Cultivate is an old farming term that could better be described as WEEDING! Farmers of yesteryear would look at that thing and know EXACTLY what to do with it! They might have used horses to pull a two row cultivator through a corn field 100 years ago. Their cultivators would have looked more like the "sweeps" that were made for the gravely tool holder but the idea is the same: Scrape the weeds up between the rows CONSTANTLY so they can't ever really get going compete with the crops. The rotary cultivator essentially does the same thing but I'm really excited to try this older method! I'll post some video of it on youtube when I get there!

And yes, I have a HUGE garden and I try to grow as much of the food my little family consumes as possible! The corn is actually for my 6 chickens! It's a dry field corn!

Nate
 
#9 ·
I have just picked up a tool holder with cultivators and I can't wait to use it! I will be using it to "cultivate" between corn rows. Cultivate is an old farming term that could better be described as WEEDING! Farmers of yesteryear would look at that thing and know EXACTLY what to do with it! They might have used horses to pull a two row cultivator through a corn field 100 years ago. Their cultivators would have looked more like the "sweeps" that were made for the gravely tool holder but the idea is the same: Scrape the weeds up between the rows CONSTANTLY so they can't ever really get going compete with the crops. The rotary cultivator essentially does the same thing but I'm really excited to try this older method! I'll post some video of it on youtube when I get there!

Nate
The old style rotary cultivator works great for me for controling weeds. However, the toolbar cultivator set up properly might do well also. A rotary type stirs up the ground more which causes more weeds to germinate. I would like to try the old sweep and hoes setup like you see in the Gravely manuals. I think it would do the job of weeding with less soil disturbance than a rotary cultivator. I have yet to find a sweep/hoes setup for sale.
 
#10 ·
I have one and have tried it a couple times but find it to be useless for cultivating due to the lack of front weight and thus depth. I think it could be a useful attachment for potatoes with a couple of hillers and a furrower, but I do not yet have those accessories for it (hard to find). Because it is adjustable, it is more forgiving from a row width standpoint than the rotary cultivator is going to be (> 24") with less risk of really damaging your roots. To me, I'd almost rather have a pull-type attachment than a push type for this function. Used grass clippings this year to keep weeds down.
 
#13 ·
Are you also able to use your furrower for potato harvest or does it not run deep enough?
 
#17 ·
I tried it last year with a single set of ag tires and it worked somewhat but had traction issues. This year I put gear reduction wheels on my LI with the anticipation of it working great. Problem was my potatoes did not make so I did not get to try it.:crybaby: I will let you know when I finally get to try it out. This setup dooes work awesome with the rotary plow though. :thThumbsU
 
#14 ·
A note as to the advantages of cultivating beyond weed control; tilled ground loses less moisture to evaporation. It seem counter intuitive, one might think the tilled soil would lose more moisture but tilling break the capillary movement of moisture to the surface. Even a light tilling will conserve moisture during dry weather.
 
#15 · (Edited)
I always figured that broken up ground would have a tendency to hold more water than hard packed ground, Around here the ground can be almost as hard as a rock. A rock doesn't hold much water at all. Then again, what do I know? Not a lot.
 
#18 ·
I used mine set up just like the first pic in this thread. I had it set at, I believe, around 28" which worked great when the plants were small. I didn't leave enough room between the path and the plants to allow for growth, so once they grew up i couldn't fit down the rows. I've also found it works well on freshly rotary-plowed sod as it acts like a rake pushing the sod clumps off.

Rick
 
#21 ·
The bigger problem is our throw-away society coupled with the general lack of basic mechanical skills. If more people would actually repair things, I believe the result would be rather significant.

I wonder what would happen if the majority of people actually grew their own vegetables.
 
#22 ·
I was going to start this exact thread, but figured this one is 21 posts old, and many of the same questions are here already.

I just ran the TroyBilt Horse through the garden. To get weed control, the tines sure seem to beat the daylights out of the soil.
I feel the front tine tiller on a Gravely would do similar.

I have spent years building up the condition of my soil. Sure, I gotta control weeds, but, I do not want to destroy everything along with weed removal.



Close to the plants, we use a hand hoe. I have been wondering about using this cultivator, and whether it could work similar to a hand hoe.

Well, I called Richard's, they said they could throw one in a couple UPS boxes and send it to me.

They said it might take a week or so to get it out.
This was my first Richard's order, I sent a long laundry list of items, the cultivator was an afterthought, I called and added that.

I guess it is my turn to try using one. I have high hopes I can get the minimal weed control I need, without grinding the soil to smithereens!

With what I have done in the garden over the last three years, I am thoroughly convinced the texture of the soil has a great deal to do with plant success.
Compost, compost, compost! Now that I have added it, I want to have it as long as possible.

The reason I resurrected this old thread was in hopes that some may have used the cultivator since the original post started.

Any hints? :dunno:
 
#26 ·
Any hints? :dunno:
Make sure you have some weight on it! If I remember right, all you have are Kohler-powered machines, and like JimWA said, the toolholder was already light on the old L models with the smaller/lighter Gravely engine. I have to imagine that you're going to find it tail heavy.

I am looking forward to trying out my rear toolholder cultivator sometime. No more tire tracks, although I might have to put a toolholder casting on the front for balance. If the rear toolholder is too tail heavy, you dig too deep vs the front toolholder where you don't dig deep enough. Plus, I still need to be able to lift it up at the end of rows! Maybe next summer I'll get the chance...
 
#23 ·
When my Dad got the LS, he had a rotary plow and rotary cultivator. Used the cultivator for a few months but our garden had so many rocks in it that would get stuck in the tines and stall it out that he traded in on a tool holder cultivator. After plowing, the cultivator was used to help level out the soil before planting. We would cultivate until the plants got tall enough to make it tough to get through the rows. The front is light compared to other attachments but you could pull up on the bars to dig in more without any trouble.
 
#24 ·
In the spring I try to work the garden three or more times to take out any weeds that germinate. This tool works great for that I have it adjusted to the width of my machine, it gets the job done fast and saves wear and tear on your tiller.. It is to short to use to cultivate...you may could use it one or maybe two times after stuff comes up.
 
#25 ·
I've got several tool-holder cultivators that came with various tractors and never used any until last year. I figured why did I need it when the rotary plow does such a good job preparing soil for planting.

An old-timer friend told me about when he was a teenager they used to make all kinds of money with their father's gravely going around doing chores in the neighborhood, and one of their most-used attachments in summer was the fixed-tine cultivator.

So I tried it, and decided there's value there. I set mine so the tines only go down about 2 inches, so all I'm really doing is tearing up the surface a bit, and uprooting any weeds that are in the way. For that job, it works pretty well, and saves time over doing it by hand.
 
#28 ·
I had a tool holder but you have to cultivate back wards to do a clean job. I used a model L with the tool holder as a sweetcorn picker. I built a dumpbox on the toolholder and would run the tractor down the rows tossing the corn in the box. Saved a lot of lifting and lugging. Unfortunately it got too heavy to maneuver and before I could invent something better like rubber tires instead of the wavy colters, the tractor got ripped off by the local white trash... oh well... FB.
 
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