Odd question . . .

My little riding mower is a Toro Wheel Horse 1998 Series 265-H. The shop replaced the original 15 HP Kohler with a 13 HP last year. i asked for 20 HP but they pulled a bait and switch so here we are until this one wears out.

All I use it for is towing a utility trailer around on my hilly 15 acres, firewood and compost and manure. But everything is steep here, so it works pretty hard.

I need something on the back end of it to tear up my heavy red clay soil. A miniature plow? A tow-able rototiller? A single chisel tooth blade off a box scraper welded to a trailer hitch?

I cannot do traditional gardening.

I'm disabled, with partial paralysis of the legs ever since the Tet Offensive in '68. I can't walk behind a rototiller long enough to get the work done, so my gardening style is to dig 36" wide trenches on my sloping land, with 48" clear space between them, then fill them with compost, and ride to and from and between them on my tractor.

I'm always digging in more of these mini-farms, so I need a way to use the tractor to dig these trenches, which means ripping up the soil so I don't have to pick and shovel it inch by inch.

I have rented a small backhoe before, and made some trenches that way, but it seems to me that for the same money I could buy a plow or digging tool of some sort for this little tractor and do the work myself, which is what my idea of fun is.

I've also used my one-man gas powered augur to break up the clay, but that is as hard and slow-going as Ye Olde Pick n' Shovel. FYI, I have to do this kind of trench digging sitting down, swinging the pick and tossing dirt with the shovel. Watching me at it is more like witnessing an exercise in implacable will power than gardening aplomb. But I gets it done, eventually.

But I'm near to 60 now, and feel somewhat entitled to get even lazier than I already am, so I'm looking for a way to make the tractor dig or break up this clay.

Who sells towable digging implements? Plows, scrapers, tillers that can be towed, you name it and I'll consider it.

More important, has anyone tried this route or have sensible advice about trying it?

Thanks for any advice,

Antifa Richtoffen

 

I know the stuff is made, or has been made. I have a small turn plow made for a small garden tractor, and I used to have plow discs and sweeps and other gardening stuff made for small garden tractors. I'd check with tractor supply. Agri-fab or a similar company probably makes them. I've seen the tow-behind tillers as well. I think I recall seeing one from sears.