HOW TO SMOOTH AND LEVEL A BUMPY FIELD OR LAWN

How do you smooth and level a bumpy field or lawn? We get asked this questions a lot: I have a really rough section of my yard that I'd like to turn a level lawn. What do I do? Today we'll tell you our strategy and show you some of the work to get there.

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This video is for entertainment purposes only. Good Works Tractors (Good Works Lawn & Power, LLC) cannot be held responsible for content found in any video. Always reference your owners manuals, use extreme caution, and proceed at your own risk.

[johngersna]

Courtney, I have a 20'×30' garden. And a 2007 John Deere 2305. I bought a tiller 2 years ago and I can tell you that i wouldn't sell it for 3 times what I paid for it. This was a great video. God bless and have a wonderful day. 👍👍🙂

[danholmblad]

Morning sir. You are right in that method. I have been doing that for 30 years. So keep up the good work. Have a great day.

[danlichtenberger]

Courtney, Another great video. Good job keeping the people informed. I’ve had a JD 550 tiller on a JD 955 since 1993. As one person also said earlier, I would not trade it for anything. It pretty much stays on my tractor year round. The oddest use I ever had for it was once we had an ice glazing and then snow over that. I needed to push the snow off my driveway and since I use the tiller as ballast in the off season, I put the PTO to mid PTO which allowed the PTO tines to roll when I put the tiller down m. It then rolled over the gravel and broke up the ice glaze and it kept my tractor tracking straight on the glazed part I was driving very slowly over. Nothing was ideal in this scenario I might add. It really was such an odd usage, but when ya have one for almost 30 years you get creative.

I’ve also left the PTO in rear PTO mode and the tines then don’t move and I use tiller as almost like a box blade and tillers drag flap on back smooths out piled up dirt and dirt flows through the tines rather well. I would HIGHLY recommend a tiller to anyone. I like it so much I bought a 681 when I bought my JD 4066R this spring. It is an absolute beast of a tiller too.

[brookeepps]

Darn! I wish I would have watched this BEFORE I got the box blade. Everything you said about box blades troubles is exactly what I have experienced

[kenwaller]

Courtney I am sure this worked, I would like to share how I did a larger area. Use a turning plow then a set of discs and then the tiller.

[mkeating]

What an amazing video. I am just starting out with rural life and this project is exactly what my wife wants me to do on our acreage. I would have been one of those people trying it with a box blade.

[aaronburford]

I enjoy your commentary! You have the voice and the presentation! Love the tiller and how the ground looks like!

[wingman]

I have that CMP rake. One of the most versatile attachments I own

[johnpyle]

Two years ago I bought a TYM T 264, same as a T 25 minus the air ride seat. It had a FEL on it and I bought a 60" woods tiller. I take care of about 4 acres and we built in 1991 so over the years after disturbing the land there were places the water found and reshaped things and about 600' of ditch line. Plus I needed to fill in almost 12" around my foundation. I ran the tiller across the top of the ditch with one side over and the other on the flat side and went back and forth what seemed like a hundred times then pushed the dirt into the ditch lessening the slope and smothing everything out. I barely slow down now on my zero turn. I needed a LOT of dirt around the house and I had a place they put the soil that cam out of my lagoon that was about a foot higher than the rest of the lawn. I tilled and tilled that spot and created about 10 yards of dirt which I put all around the foundation. It was just as soft as it could be. I went nuts with the grass seed, may have used 3 times what I needed and covered it with straw. I got it just in time! It rained for a few days and in about 4 or five days I had really thick grass. I honestly believe the tractor paid for itself in that one job vs if I hired someone to do the work. When I was done the tractor was right at the 50 hour service mark. The other thing I never knew I needed was pallet forks! I never pick up anything manually now! My sisters make fun of me and say things like, if you were wall papering a room you would figure out a way to use the tractor! lol

[of]

Thank you or this video. You addressed a lot of questions I have about areas of my property and given me some good ideas about dealing with them.

[daved]

I did essentially this same process for a 20x20 flower bed i removed to return to grass yard. However, no matter what implement i used i just couldnt get it smooth. SO i went on Marketplace and bought an older Mauldin double roller vibratory compactor (the kind you drive)... 1 ton with empty drums, 2 tons with them filled with water. It was $2000 but man, what an addition to the arsenal. The ground was smooth and flat like an iceskating rink. I seeded over it and in 2 weeks i had green peach fuzz. Currently its the ONLY portion of my yard that is smooth and flat. Hahaha. After our NY winter ends, while the ground is wet in the spring, im going to roll the entire yard.

[AdamLProductions]

If you have a small-ish lawn and don't want to rip everything all up, apply a generous amount of soil to the areas you want to smooth out and hit it with a landscape rake. The rake will distribute the soil evenly and level the areas. This technique works great for low spots. A bit more work for high spots since you'll need to distribute over a large area to level things out. Thought I'd share so people don't think they have to destroy their lawns to get them level.

[PurpleNovember]

I’ve put good sized rollers on the back of tillers and they work great!!! The best rollers are the machined ones and they are also the most expensive but the landscapers loved them. Plan on spending as much as the tiller cost if not more.

I’ll take out clumps and high spots with a heavy duty flail mower with hammers. Keep working in different directions until it’s smooth.

[dhincks]

Recently bought 5+ acres of a feral orchard. Overgrown with brush and blackberries. I've been watching your videos & and learning. Thanks. Haven't bought a tractor yet. In the California motherload. Cheers

[shitloveaduck]

All true!! 😊😊
I have tried this with both a tractor and small gas powered tillers steered by myself.
- Front tine tillers are an adventure, , , , 😂😂. They will beat you UP in areas other than already tilled soil. They are challenging to use to break up sod, but you can go really deep if you want ir need to. Definitely just small areas.
- rear tine self propelled tillers, still steered by hand are much easier to use. A challenge to turn with (unless to spend big, big dollars on one with brakes for each wheel. Those are really nice. You could, , just could, , , , use one for an area like we saw in this video. It’s gonna take you a LOT of time and walking to get this large of an area done, but the rear tine, self propelled tillers are definitely easier for breaking sod.
- tractor mounted there’s no comparison!!! 😂😂. You drive the Your neck will hurt from turning to see what’s being done all the time, the uneven terrain can leave you a bit sore depending on how in shape, or used to running on rough ground you are, but NOTHING like the aches & pains you will have from the smaller gas powered tillers! Nothing like those at all!! 😂😂. They work the soil more, break it up into smaller pieces. If you sprayed or scalped the area for the sun to burn the grass etc to nothing, then you will get the best results and with enough passes will almost have powder for dirt (depending on how dry or wet it is. I like the dethatching rake used here to pick up what just isn’t worth tilling in 4 more times etc. it worked really slick. We would use our harrows and go in circles over the area and if they clogged up, would drag them to the side to clean them out (this can be hard work. We just disconnected ours, grabbed one side with a chain (both sides had draw bars) and roll it over top of itself. Everything tend to let go a the flipping it the other way moves it away from the debris (kind of). Then more circles. You can get almost perfectly level soil this way, but it’s more work, way more work, than is apparently the case with the dethatcher!!!!
I wish I had seen this video about 55 years ago! Where were you then Courtney??? 😂😂😂.

[KevinJD]

To level a piece of land out i would first determine how much roots there will be in the ground. If it's not much or much thick ones I would just till it with a rotary tiller and till it up really fine. And than just flatten out with a boxblade. If there are much roots I would firstly pul a shank ripper trough it and trie to pul out as much as possible. Collect the big roots rotor till it and then boxbalde it. The ripping will take a lot of time but it's the only way to save te blades on the rotary tiller from the thick roots.

[mleachx]

I had about 2.5 acre area that was used for hay that had huge ruts when I built my house and made mowing with a rider hurt your back or get you stuck. This was the solution I used as well. Local guy on facebook tilled it for me with an old tractor. I used my friend's atv to drag a large frame I made from lumber that I'd wrapped with old chain link fence. That area is now more smooth than where the builder used their bobcat to grade around the house. I also didnt spray or scrape the topsoil and just tilled it all, and I didnt even need to seed it, the field grass came back on its own.

[aaronburford]

Rewatched! Excellent video, great step by step comtemt! Love the attachments, great end result at rhe end of the video! Looks amazing!

[patrickcorbett]

Good job Court....I'm still out here ! Lol
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[aaronburford]

This was great commentary and excellent commentary! You have a great voice for recording, easy to listen to! Liked, Viewed, Subscribed, n