The tractor nerd in me had been yearning for another tractor implement for some time now but I couldn’t bring myself to pay full retail for it. A landscape rake (sometimes called a York rake) is a 3 point attachment that you drag behind a tractor to do just as the name implies… rake. With so much debris in the forest, I felt this might be the only tool to expedite the process aside from going out there and doing it by hand (which was never gonna happen).
I found a 6′ rake a few weeks ago on one of the snappy iPhone apps that most people sell trinkets, tires and toddler toys so this anomaly was not moving too fast. I finally connected with the guy last week and last night I hooked it up to Bob and dragged it around the yard a bit just to see how it would do. Wow… this thing can pick up some stuff!
It’ll take me a little while to get the hang of it. It swings really wide behind the tractor and I also have to adjust the cutting height as I go so that as the tractor undulates over terrain the rake doesn’t dig too deep. The rake tines are a good 5’ behind the rear tractor wheels and they are 6’ wide, so I definitely have to pay attention to what’s happening back there.
It clogs up with material pretty quickly so I can go for maybe 20’ before I have to lift the rake and start again. That leaves nice little piles of debris that I’ll just pick up with the loader and then probably trailer them to the dump in one big debris load.
All in all, the results are great considering my lack of technique. I only paid $200 for it vs about $600-1,400 new, so even if I only use it a handful of times and re-sell it, I’m coming out ahead, plus… the yard will look great!
