Roland Deschain

That's an impressive hill. I'm just starting to wrap my head around hugelkultur and I'm wondering about using it for a raspberry or blueberry hedge. Does it get too hot to plant berry bushes the first year, or do you think it would be alright to plant them when I first build the mound?

Good points! I love the look of them, including that Avant, but I see what you mean about them not being the best option for field work. The more I look at options like Kubota's BX, the more I realize that there probably isn't any reason why I'd need the tight turning radius of a tractor that articulates. Mostly I just want a small machine that I can plow snow with, till, and move compost and dirt around. From what I've been reading, a subcompact should be plenty for what I want to do. Even though a bigger 30+ hp tractor would be fun, it might be overkill for my "needs" I'll have to talk to a few dealers around here and maybe some small hobby farmers and see what their experiences are with the 20-25hp machines in our rocky terrain. It looks like an enclosed cab adds quite a bit to the price tag too... I may just have to rely on a heavier coat and gloves during the winter!

The 18k price tag of the subcompacts is starting to look a lot better than the 30k I was initially looking at. Wife ran across a nice listing for a house on 10 acres the other day and it was hard to talk her out of it - all east-facing and shaded most of the day, but a great mountain view that overlooked the city.

Gaz,

I agree - from what I've read it comes down to the quality of the local dealer. I liked the reach of the NorCar, but it doesn't look like any of the local guys have a similar type of tractor. The Yanmar 2450 and the Kubota BX25 are similar in size and it sounds like they run about $16k. I haven't looked too closely at either of them just yet, but it looks like the Yanmar will take a mid-mounted mower... I think that will be a good selling point for convincing the wife at least

Hi all,

So I'm new to the forum but my wife and I have spent the last year researching all we can about starting our own hobby farm (5-10 acres, hopefully partially-wooded). I'll be done with college in another year and we're starting to look at property around our area. We'll be doing mostly gardening and won't have any livestock bigger than a goat or 2 - mostly chickens. We live near Spokane, WA and things here are pretty rocky. Anyway, I'm considering getting a small tractor for snow removal, post hole digging, plowing, and just plain digging holes because I can. Beyond that and hooking up a mower and maybe a chipper/shredder, that's about all I plan to use it for. Since I don't know anything about tractors, I'm going to want to buy one from a dealer - so either new or gently used.

I've seen a few small articulating tractors and they look pretty fun to use. I was looking at one by a company called NorCar that looks pretty slick but it doesn't look like they're in the US - at least in my neck of the woods. It's a nice, compact articulating tractor and has some nice attachments. I'm wondering if this is something that would be the right size for what I plan on doing or if I need to be considering something bigger/smaller - and is an articulating tractor worth the extra $$ it might cost if there's even an equivalent in the US, and is the wheelbase wide enough for rocky terrain?

Thanks for any input - I know I might not have a lot to go off of yet, but that's why I'm asking ahead of time. I don't want to be dreaming about the wrong kind of tractor for the next year

Here's the NorCar I was talking about:


Thanks all