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Single Rotary Plow on
BCS walking tractor The Rotary Plow is a highly effective “primary tillage” implement, capable of penetrating sod 12” deep in ONE PASS; it’s side-discharge nature also makes it very popular for building Raised Beds. This tool was pioneered on a walk-behind tractor by the Gravely® company many years ago…it was effective, but the front–PTO design of the Gravely® tractors made operation of this tool rather dangerous.
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Power Harrows gently stir & work the soil “horizontally”, offering the ultimate in seedbed preparation and secondary tillage/weed control with no soil inversion or hardpan formation (Also called “Rotary Harrow” or Rotary Power Harrow”) Professional market gardeners and farmers in Europe have been using these machines for many years, and folks in North America are finally “catching on” that these tools are the best secondary tillage option, particularly for soils that are worked multiple times during the growing season.
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Tillers, with their horizontally-mounted shafts and vertical tilling action, are the most widespread tillage tool for small-scale farming and gardening: simple, versatile, low cost, and effective. The Grillo Company has been building rear-tine tillage equipment since the early 1950’s. Through a technology-sharing venture with BCS which lasted from roughly the late 1960’s to the early 1980’s, BCS acquired rear-tine tiller technology (the first BCS-branded tillers were produced around 1970).
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Caravaggi Strip-Tiller
on walk-behind tractor NEW FOR 2023! Finally, the ultimate in “minimum tillage” – a Tiller that only tills a 2-inch wide strip! This implement is actually a modification to the existing “Mini-Trencher” produced by the Caravaggi company of Italy. Designed to work with “minimum tillage” systems, it tills the soil in a 2-inch wide strip, with working depth adjustable from 2.5 inches to 6 inches deep…PERFECT for direct-seeding a row of crop, OR planting transplants.
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BCS walk-behind tractor with 30" tiller, with Earth Tools TDS installed (ALSO FITS GRILLO TILLERS) The BCS PDR and Earth Tools TDS both add a full-width roller to a tiller implement to precisely regulate tilling depth and leave a level, pressed bed. This enables consistently shallow tillage to minimize soil disturbance, plus providing a “pressed” seedbed for best results with precision multi-row seeding equipment; This allows the tiller implement to perform SOME of the functions that the Power Harrow has become famous for.
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Bedshaper with Disk Hillers,
tool carrier & drawbar This tool has shank-mounted disk hillers on each side, clamped to a 45” wide frame. The disk hillers are more effective than furrowers or ridgers for “throwing” up the soil to make a raised bed, as the disks are rotating by ground contact as they are pulled through the soil. A drag chain in the rear pulls the “ridges” in and levels off the top of the bed.
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3-foot mulch layer Available in sizes to lay 3 or 4 foot plastic mulch, these units are made by us, right here in Kentucky! Scaled to fit walk-behind tractors, these layers do a great job laying plastic mulch and burying the edges. (Unlike many 4-wheel-tractor mulch layers, this tool DOES NOT make a raised bed at the same time as laying the plastic; a walk-behind tractor does not have enough traction to both move soil into a raised bed AND bury the edges of plastic mulch at the same time.
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28" Spike Tooth Harrow Another tool from Aldo Biagioli of Italy, this spike-tooth harrow is 28” wide, and tines can be removed individually if narrower tillage width is required (the frame remains the full width, however). The teeth are staggered from each other so that the 12 teeth all contact the soil in different spots to give full-width coverage. This is a great low-tech tool for roughing up the soil for light weeding, incorporating cover crops, crust-busting, etc.
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ET-5 with tool carrier & drawbar Constructed by Aldo Biagioli of Italy, these universal tools are available in 4 configurations and feature clamp-on shanks with standard reversible 1½” wide chisels. The working angle of the tool is controlled by the adjustment on the Tool Carrier (see below), and the overall penetration depth is controlled both by this angle adjustment AND the TWO removable/adjustable caster wheels that all of this brand of cultivators come with (other cultivators on the market have only a SINGLE depth wheel, which is problematic: With only one depth wheel, when one of the tractor wheels goes over a hump or into a depression, the shanks on one side of the cultivator lean to one side and “dig in” more, causing the tractor to veer in that direction).
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Adjustable-Frame Cultivator
(Shown with 4 shanks & 4" V-sweeps) Designed and constructed right here in Kentucky! This shank-type cultivator system offers the ultimate in quick adjustment and versatility. Overall frame width is incrementally adjusted by a screw-crank on the rear of the frame. There are NINE different shank positions on each side of the frame. Measuring the OUTERMOST shank positions, total shank-to-shank outside width as much as 33”, and as little as 20.
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The design of this tool is hundreds of years old, but it is still in widespread use today, especially on 4-wheel tractors. While other primary tillage methods may be faster and more effective, the moldboard is still an inexpensive way to do first-time soil breaking. Two 1-bottom designs available for walk-behind tractors: Standard (below on left–rolls soil to right) and Swivel (below on right–Reversible frame with 2 plowshares: one rolls to right, the other to left).
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This tool is popular for small-scale root crop harvesting with a walk-behind tractor. It will typically go “as deep as the soil has been worked” during the planting of the crop, and sifts a good portion of the soil through the round tines, leaving most of the tuber crop exposed.
Earth Tools' owner & daughter
harvesting potatoes Works very well for Potatoes, Garlic, Beets, Turnips, Onions, small Carrots (on crops other than potatoes, do not drive the plow down the center of the row, or the center shank will damage the crop…go off to one side!
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If your planting of Potatoes or Garlic is large-scale enough to justify it, we now offer a Ground-Driven Potato, Garlic & Onion Set Planter for Walk-behind tractors. This unit is built by the Italian company Marte in southern Italy.
The Cleated Steel Drive Wheels on the implement are a superior design compared with other planters on the market that use rubber pneumatic wheels; the rubber wheels can loose traction more easily in soft soils, plus, it’s another set of wheels to potentially go flat.
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In the correct soil conditions and with potato beds that are designed correctly, this PTO-powered Potato digger can be a real labor-saver. The tractor PTO operates a “shaker-grate” in the rear that shakes out most of the soil and leaves the potatoes on top (works for most large potato varieties…if you are growing “fingerling” potatoes or digging a lot of “new” or small potatoes, this may not be the digger for you).
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These tools are designed to create a narrow planting furrow, OR, with “wings” in rear folded out, push soil further out to create ridges or perform hilling of crops. Scroll down to see all options.
Hiller/Furrower Accessory (colors vary) The Hiller/Furrower is an accessory to the tiller implement; it attaches with a single pin to the rear of the tiller and is used with the tiller tines working so it can sink into the soil.
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A Subsoiler is a good “mechanical” alternative to Broad-forking in previously-worked garden beds, breaking up hardpan, providing aeration, and loosening compacted soil up to 11” deep. When attached to a relatively light machine like a walking tractor, traction augmentation will be necessary (wheel weights, possibly dual wheels or cleated steel wheels). 2 depth positions. The more wheel weight and traction you have, the more effective this tool will be.
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For applications like cutting up the surface of previously-worked soil (that is, soil that has already been worked that growing season) to seed a cover crop, leveling out clumps of soil, or light weed control, the old-fashioned disk harrow is a great low-cost option for gentle surface soil scarification / cultivation. Made in America and adapted to the walk-behind tractor application by us, this unit features adjustable width from 29 to 39 inches, adjustable angles on disk axles (10, 15 and 20 degrees) and eight 11 inch diameter disks.
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BCS 749 with 5x12x22” wheels and 28” Stoneburier tiller This is essentially a super-heavy-duty counter-rotating-tine tiller (tines rotate opposite tractor wheel direction) with reverse-angle tines that interface with a set of vertical steel rods (a “grate” if you will) at the rear of the unit… essentially, the “clean dirt” is pushed through the “grate” at the rear, and any stones up to baseball-sized, roots, organic matter, etc. are pushed to the bottom of the tilth and thus “clean” soil is left on top.
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Designed for commercial-scale row-crop cultivation, this unit is manufactured by the R2 Rinaldi Company in Italy. This implement is designed to do shallow cultivation on either side of a row, and is able to straddle a plant up to 6” tall. Individual tiller widths are adjustable from 7.5” to 10.5” and tiller units slide left and right on the frame to allow 7” to 12” widths down the center.
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Reciprocating Spader on BCS walking tractor We offer a reciprocating (true) spader for walk-behind tractors from the Tortella company in Italy. Reciprocating spaders have cam-lever driven spades which thrust into the ground at about a 45 ° angle and then “kick” the soil up against the underside of the hood to break it up. The spading action results in minimal inversion of soil layers and no measurable hardpan formation.
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We offer TWO options for this type of implement…both have similar functions of throwing soil to BOTH sides and leaving a depressed pathway in the middle. Both options produce a more or less “peaked” Ridge on either side…so while this type of implement is a good option for hilling and creating ridges, it is NOT a good option for making flat-topped raised beds.
First, we have the BCS-Brand “Power Ridger”.
