If you can find a piece from a chain link fence about 4' to 6' wide and about 3 feet long and drag that behind the tractor after knocking down the hills with a rake it does a pretty good job . Ideally a gate with all but 1 piece of the frame removed ( leave a side piece) to keep it spread out and act as a leading edge and give you something to attach some chain lengths to so as to grab it

 

That sounds like a great idea, thanks! Now to be on the lookout for free/discarded chain link. And I'll give the dethatcher a try anyways, if it's what I have when I get my dirt.

 

I don't think you need the extra weight...but you can experiment

 

An old steel bed frame with lots of steel mesh also works well.

 

Another good idea, thanks! I have some angle iron I could try; don't know if I have a spare bed frame around.

Heck, I suppose you could even try rigging up some sort of wooden board, with maybe some sort of lighter-duty metal fencing attached.

But I'm going to see if I can come up with a piece of chain link, that sounds like a decent place to start. I hadn't realized how expensive that stuff is. But I do see a few ads with people getting rid of some. Hoping I can find a piece for free/cheap.

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

I used an old swing set A frame hooked up by a chain, worked great. Could just use some 4 by 4s.

 

All good ideas that work, this is something I made from stuff I had plus the tines from Tractor Supply, the pins are 3/8".

Works well, and rakes soft soil well.

 

I have a home made drag made from heavy duty chain link fencing attached to a welded rebar frame with hog rings. Before that, I just dragged around an upside down wooden pallet.

 

It's dirt, if you can drag something over it, it will surrender.

I'm thinking that wooden pallet worked very well, and cheap.

 

One time I flipped over my plug aerator and used the ballast box as a box blade. It worked well.

 

Thanks guys, I appreciate all the suggestions! Sounds like the dethatcher itself is probably not the best approach, but clearly there are a bunch of ways to tackle the problem.

I'll see what I can cobble together, if i can't get a piece of fencing. I don't have a pallet at the moment, unfortunately, but I guess I could try flipping the dethatcher or aerator upside-down. Or just try some boards. Seeing the looks on the neighbors faces, while using implements upside-down, would be kinda funny.

 

I have a 3 foot wide aluminum landscape rake that I used to use for such projects. Are you anywhere near northeast PA? It's possible I could be talked out of it for the price of a good story.

 

Ha, thanks, but I'm in MA

I bought a section of chain link fence off Craigslist. This weekend I'm hoping to get to try this out. Pick up some dirt, distribute it, then see how the fence does for smoothing it out.

And then hopefully also have a better sense of how many loads of dirt I'll need. This is not some major project, but I don't have a good sense of many yards of dirt it will take. But if my utility trailer will safely handle getting a yard home, then I'll just do it that way, and see how it goes. It's not a big rush, and the landscaping place is nearby, so another run is not a big deal.

My utility trailer can tilt, but I haven't yet rigged up a winch, to let me tilt it when it's heavy. So I'll have to drag the stuff out manually, like a sucker

 

So I'll have to drag the stuff out manually...

Speaking of drag and manual.

What a drag!

I would have preferred to drag this around with the tractor but I needed to have better control of the bite and angle as well as get tight into the corners. I topped up the driveway with about 8 yards or so of gravel. Needed a way to grade it so I flipped a pallet upside down and put a rope on...

www.mytractorforum.com

 

I'm glad you got to drag that around, rather than me

I got a yard of screened loam this morning. I'm glad the place is just a few miles away, that's about as much weight as I have put in my 4x7 utility trailer, which is about 20 years old.

My "new" tractor did a great job of pulling the trailer around the yard to the different areas, I got the dirt spread around, then tried the chain link fence to smooth it out.

It worked nicely, and was quite simple. It's a 4x12' piece of fence, so I just rolled it up so maybe 3-4 feet were sticking out, tied a rope to it, and used it like that. I did noticed that it left a slight rounded shape. So maybe I'll roll it around a 2x4, so there'll be something to keep it straight at the front. That might help cut down anything that's sticking up a bit.

It did seem to pull out small rocks that were new the surface of the new dirt. So they're kind of gathered around the edges of the areas.

Thanks all for the suggestions!

 

It's a 4x12' piece of fence, so I just rolled it up so maybe 3-4 feet were sticking out, tied a rope to it, and used it like that. I did noticed that it left a slight rounded shape. So maybe I'll roll it around a 2x4, so there'll be something to keep it straight at the front.

Instead of rolling up the surplus, consider folding it in half so it is 6 feet long. The extra weight and stiffness should help to keep it flatter. You could sandwich a 2X4 in between at both ends and use fence staples to keep it together. Maybe a third 2X4 in the middle as well.

 

That's a good idea, thanks! This will get a bunch of uses, so I'll have to try that next time.

Later I tried running the dethatcher over the areas, to see if I could get the existing grass to stick up through the new dirt, so it might survive. That didn't really work, unfortunately, I only got a few pieces to stick through. So once I get the areas leveled out, I'll have to put down grass seed.

 

Later I tried running the dethatcher over the areas, to see if I could get the existing grass to stick up through the new dirt, so it might survive.

What I do when top dressing with a thin layer is that I cut the grass really short so that the stubble stays upright and stands a better chance of pushing up through the new dirt. I also time it with the weather so the dirt can dry out and remain loose for the grass to grow up through it.

Of course, the dirt needs to be dry enough to begin with so the tractor tires don't pack it down hard. What I do to dry it out is spread out my dirt pile in an area where it matters not to kill the grass so the sun can dry it out. In your case that would mean extra handling since you probably have no control of the moisture level where you get your soil.

 

Ha, that's a good point about keeping the grass short, so it's more like stubble, and can poke through. Unfortunately, I thought about it the other way, and waited until the grass was kind of long. Hoping it would be tall enough to stick through. But of course, it just got pushed over sideways. Oh well.

This time I haven't used the lawn roller yet, at least, so I haven't deliberately packed the dirt down. That's an interesting point about letting it dry out. I'm trying to minimize extra amounts of shoveling it around by hand (neck issues), so I'll probably just have to make do with its condition when I get it.

I appreciate the advice, thanks!