Your garden tractor can be as useful in September as it was in May. Whether you are a suburban homeowner and hobby flower gardener or grow vegetables on a highway, you can get both satisfaction and profit from keeping your tractor equipment working for you as many days as possible and at many different jobs.
Some owners of garden tractors find uses for them almost year-round. Attachments have been developed that enable these power machines to take the backache out of literally dozens of hard chores.
During this season, one of the tasks which give the tractor-wise homeowner the most satisfaction is lawn mowing.
This is the time of year when crabgrass takes over many lawns, and a thick growth can make itself felt when you try to push a mower through it.
However, a garden tractor with either a reel-type or rotary mower attachment does easy work of what otherwise is a hot job.
Use of Garden Tractors
With the right attachment, your tractor will also be very useful in trimming up fencerows and any vacant land that has grown up to weeds and woody plants. Hay fever sufferers especially appreciate this as it helps keep down the local pollen count.
Cutting down weeds with a sickle bar or rotary mower reduces fire hazards in late fullness. The rotary-type mower is well adapted to mowing large weeds, even on rolling land.
Some garden tractors also can be equipped with brush mowers or power saws that are a big help in clearing land.
They make short work of clearing brush and will even fell rather large trees. Late summer and early fall are good times to start this work if additional space is needed for plantings next spring.
Applying Chemicals
Some garden tractor owners like to use their sprayer attachments for applying chemicals to fencerows and vacant land for weed control.
However, extreme care must be used to ensure these chemicals do not come in contact with valued ornamentals or flowers.
If the equipment is not thoroughly cleaned before it is used for other purposes, even a small amount of the materials left in the sprayer may cause losses.
Garden tractor owners are finding that it sometimes pays to put up hay from vacant tracts, especially if the growth contains some legumes. They use a sickle-type mower and a dump rake attachment.
Even where the hay is not to be used for animal feeding, it makes good composting and mulching material and may be used instead of straw, which comes high when it must be bought by the bale in most suburban and metropolitan areas.
All of us like to have beautiful lawns, and this is the season when the work done on the lawn will pay off throughout the year to come. Your garden tractor can take much of the drudgery out of the necessary tasks.
Feeding Lawn Grasses
On most soils, it is necessary to feed lawn grasses if they are to make the luxuriant growth desired. In too many instances, the underlying soil just doesn’t have the fertility necessary to support good growth.
Early fall applications of nutrients give a “kick” to the cool-season grasses that are the foundation of most of our lawns. A fertilizer attachment or spreader on a garden tractor makes it possible to do this work uniformly and at the right time.
Late summer and early fall are the best seasons in many areas for building a new lawn or renovating an old one, and a good garden tractor is extremely useful for these jobs.
A good seedbed is a foundation on which to build a beautiful lawn, whether it is a new planting or a renovation seeding, and the seedbed should be built as carefully as the foundation of a house.
In Building a New Lawn
The first step is to bring it to a proper grade. Garden tractors can often be equipped with light-grading blades or attachments useful for this purpose.
Trailer carts and wheelbarrow attachments are also useful in grading and for hauling fill dirt, fertilizers, and other materials.
Filling in low places is essential for future satisfaction, either in building a new lawn or reworking an old one.
Once the subgrade of a new lawn is established, with a gentle slope away from the house to carry away water, some fertilizer may be worked in with the tractor as the deep roots of lawn grasses feed in the subsoil.
About 25 pounds of superphosphate and 75 pounds of lime, where soil tests show excess acidity, will be needed per 1000 square feet.
Disk these materials into the soil after they have been spread evenly. Most tractors can be equipped with disks to do this job, and rotary plows or motor tillers will do a satisfactory job.
Soil
The topsoil should not be placed over the area until the subgrade is established. Again fertilizer and lime or peat may be needed. In the eastern half of the country, most soils are acidic in reaction.
It is a safe rule to apply about 75 pounds of ground limestone to 1000 square feet of area and a balanced fertilizer in an amount equal to 25 or 50 pounds of 5.10-5 or a similar formula.
This material should be worked well into the topsoil, which is then worked down smoothly and even to a fine seedbed.
Grass for Seeding
The grasses selected for seeding will depend on the lawn’s locality and nature, but it is advisable to get the best seed available. Unless a seeding attachment for the tractor is available hand seeding will be necessary. On small lawns, hand seeding can be entirely satisfactory.
About 3 to 5 pounds of seed will be needed for each 1,000 square feet of surface. After the lawn is seeded, most homeowners like to go over it with a roller to smooth out any remaining bumps or rough places.
Many garden tractor owners find a lawn roller attachment a profitable investment as it is useful for rolling and smoothing the lawn every year. In many rollers, water is used for weight or ballast. On a newly seeded area. rolling will press the seed firmly into the soil and ensure better germination.
In Renovating an Old Lawn
The most important step is to tear up the old sod by disking or shallow plowing. Weights on the disk may be necessary, and it is desirable to go over the area at least twice or more crosswise and at an angle until the old sod is thoroughly broken up and incorporated into the topsoil.
After the sod is thoroughly broken up, fertilizer and lime should be applied as needed and worked into the soil thoroughly by disking and harrowing to make a fine seedbed.
The seed of the desired mixture is then sown for a new lawn, and the area is rolled to ensure good germination.
Planting of Cover Crops
Another of the jobs that come at this season of the year for which your garden tractor will be useful is the planting of cover crops to be plowed under as green manure in the spring. This is one way of getting organic matter into your seedbeds.
Trash and remains of this season’s crops can also be plowed under early so they will decompose through the winter.
Start New Compost Piles
Some gardeners practice spreading last year’s compost materials over their plots or seedbeds at this time of year and starting new compost piles as leaves begin to drop in the fall.
Compost and manure will be needed, especially for preparing beds for planting bulbs and perennials a little later in the fall.
It’s a good plan to get these beds ready early. and your garden tractor will help you finish these chores now while the weather is still favorable.
44659 by L. E. Childers