Cornstalks

[Darryl_MO]

If your stalks are down and still at least somewhat green your TroyBilt tiller should do OK with them. I may have to unwind a stalk from the tines occasionally, but for the most part they chop and till under pretty well for me.

[freedhardwoods]

Originally Posted by Darryl_MO

If your stalks are down and still at least somewhat green your TroyBilt tiller should do OK with them. I may have to unwind a stalk from the tines occasionally, but for the most part they chop and till under pretty well for me.

I have used my Troybilt before. I didn't knock them down first though. It was a pretty big fight controlling it and I had lots of tangling.

[finsruskw]

Your IH 59A shredder won't work worth a crap unless the stalks are dry as a bone. It just make a stringy mess all wound up on the hammers and they won't go through the grate.

Leave 'em stand till they are dry.

This year, I just attacked them with my 2 handed long handle shear and cup 'e mdown starting from the top, about every 4 inches to the ground.

then sometime in sept or oct I'll plow the garden and in the spring it will work up wonderfully w/the #2

[Merk]

I plow them

[freedhardwoods]

Originally Posted by Merk

I plow them

That's turning them under pretty good. That could be an option for me if I have one entire garden in corn. Many times though, I have some corn mixed in with other veggies that will keep producing a month or two after the corn is picked.

Originally Posted by finsruskw

Your IH 59A shredder won't work worth a crap unless the stalks are dry as a bone. It just make a stringy mess all wound up on the hammers and they won't go through the grate.

Leave 'em stand till they are dry.

This year, I just attacked them with my 2 handed long handle shear and cup 'e mdown starting from the top, about every 4 inches to the ground.

then sometime in sept or oct I'll plow the garden and in the spring it will work up wonderfully w/the #2

I tried cutting some into pieces with a corn knife last year. I didn't make much of a dent in my 5,000 sq ft of corn before I decided that was way too much work for what I was getting accomplished.

Letting them dry does make them easier to work with, but I want to get my cover crop planted as soon as the corn is picked, so that leaves me having to deal with green stalks.



Thanks for the added input everyone.

[cubby102]

I have one of those big walk behind trimmer dodads (forget the name) it's like a really big weedeater on wheels but insted of string it has a single rotating blade on the front. I also used to have a Husqvarna weed eather with the sawblade attached to the bottom. But the walk behind d does a real nice job of leveling and shredding them. If I don't use that I just run em over with whatever junk mtd machine I have at the time. Wait for em to dry out and till em under