New Gardening

Breaking new ground with a mere Tiller amounts to Torture. My shoulders hurt. My back has aches in places it never has before, & my hands despite the gloves hurt from keeping a deathgrip on the tiller so it don't get away.

I've given a name to my torture device. I call it "Hoppin John", cuz it always jumping around & sum times tries to run away from me. I yank it back into place with raw muscle power.

I tilled for about 5 hours Friday, 3 1/2 Saturday, & more to go today. When breaking new ground with a tiller, progress is measured in inches forward & inches deep.

Yesterday I prematurely picked up a truckload of mixed compost at Spindale Mulch. They was kind enough to mix it up for me. It consists of one scoop mushroom compost, one scoop organic food compost, & one scoop 8 year old leaf compost. The 'shroom compost stinks to high heaven. Its supposed to be spread over garden after I get the breaking ground tilling done. Then I'm to till it into the soil.

The man at Spindale mulch said all the ground in this area is that red clay. He also recommended I come back this week an get one scoop dolemite lime to spread over it & till it in. I suspect he must hate me to want me to have yet another go round with Hoppin John.

Sadly, I'll prolly do it.

Luckily Hoppin John seems to be happier than a pig in mud when going thru previously tilled soil.

Still got about a quarter to go ground breaking. Sumone shoot me? Please?

My dream to sum day have ten acres of land now most definitely include a dang TRACTOR!!!

 

Ouch Stan....

Ah....there you go....doing strenuous activity for 5 hours straight...did you warm up...and do stretching exercises first?....did you do cool down and stretching exercises at the end? I think I'd also prescribe a long hot bath with epsom salts and a few shots of your preferred firewater just to take the edge off. Take care, Stan....that body has to last you a lifetime...

 

Way in the past my father used to make us till then hooked my brother and i up to a hand plow and had us pull that to finish breaking the soil and lay up the furrows...about a 2 acre garden... we decided to get it done fast when my grandfather took over and started pulling fast... one minor problem... he used to plow with a mule... and burried the plow brought us up short...

thanks for reminding me of the memories...

 

wanna come help? Relive yer Youth? =)

 

If i come i'm bringing my little tractor and discs.... (got a hydralic issue and it's at the mechanics right now....) I'd drive the big JD over but it would be a long ride at 30 mph....

 

Though I only live on 3/4 an acre. I may just keep an eye out fer a nice old Ford 8n or 9n Tractor. Plus, it'd be nice to have for the future.

 

I feel for you Stang. I spent twenty or so years growing 4 to 7 acres of market garden. We used both front and rear tine tillers.The best piece of equipment I found for a small garden was(and still use it)an old david bradley walking tractor.Old school and very easy to control whether plow share or disc.Spring tooth harrow to finish and share to furrow. Many of them still around and working. Attachments easy to find or convert. They give you optimal use of a small plot of land for a garden and maintenance is way cheaper than a tractor. Should mention most of our attachments had some sort of a foot board to ride on.

 

Age and cunning.....

The aphorism, age and cunning vs youth and enthusiasm comes to mind, lol. such are the lessons of life that cunning comes from!

 

You may hate me for this, because you already did the hard work.

You have knowledge seeker under your name so I know you will want to watch this. Go down about 14 post to the one titled Back to Eden, and watch the video. Oh, by the way I sold my tiller. Good gardening!

 

Spent another 7 hours working in the garden again today. % with Hopping John breaking new ground. Another 2 Shoveling my compost mixture out into the garden. Then went to the coin car wash & spent $8 washing my truck to get the stink outta my Truck Bed!!!

I got between 1-2 hours of ground breaking Tilling left at most. Depending on if I wanna make garden even wider or not. Still gotta till the compost into the soil. Hopefully it won't stink as bad then.

Luckily I got a lotta tilling done today as I think I've finally figured out about how to break new ground with a tiller. I also figured out theres no way on Earth to till a straight line breaking new ground LoL

 

hmmm..Is this a 4 tine tiller...?
If so i have removed the 2 outside tines and just used the other 2 for new ground breaking...Easier to control..and i'm not above putting an edge on the tine's...

 

Gator, yes its a 4 tine. As for Sharpening the Tines, NOT with My Luck!!!

Saturday I hauled a load of rotten Landscape Timbers to landfill. Since they had creosote they had to go in building for Household Garbage with big hole in back. They can't bury creosote any more. My broom for sweeping out truck fell in the hole. Stopped at Dollar General on way home to get the second load & bought a cheap broom with a plastic end screwed onto the pole. Second load with the very first sweep the end flew off into the hole. Left there & went by ATM to get more FRNs to buy Retaining Wall Blocks with. Machine ate my card & kept it. So no way am I sharpening the Tines on Hoppin John!!! Might lose a Foot despite my steel toed boots!!!

 

Hmm.. Burn the cresote...
Stay out of the Dollar store for the time being...
A.T.M.s continue to suck...
Sharpen the Tines'...

 

I'm guessing Hopping John is a front tined tiller... we use a rear mounted 6 tined tiller to limit the jumping around...

 

Oh yes...old times not forgotten! Thanks for helping me reminisce...

 

Stan, you are just having way too much fun. Used to have a "jumper" till I went to rear tines---big difference. Now we use raised beds. So much easier and simplier. Will be using the old 240 to disc the old garden sites for market corn, tomatoes, squash, and okra. Hope to sell enough to buy more goodies. Have never sold produce before so this is a learning experience. Using a two disc bottom plow to hill up a sweet potato bed. Will be putting in a gracious amount of horse manure before raising the bed. Should make "dem yams" jump--lol.
Sell that front tined torture machine and get a rear--or find one w/o a motor and just swap yours onto it. If you can find a Troy built grab it quick. They are heavy but have a lifetime guarentee(except for motor/belts/control cables).
We added two inches of horse manure to the beds and just shovel turned it over as deep as the shovel. Then we raked it level and plugged in the plants into "Xs" cut into weed cloth. Could have simply chopped the fresh manure(old) in but wanted to get it deep so the roots would get down.

 

Mid Tined Merry Tiller. Like this but much older

 

Yep, looked around after my last post and found several walking tractors up for sale. Some advertised as "yard ornaments". The yuppies use them to make it look like a country setting..

 

Yesterday after work stopped by Lowes & came home with a Troy-Built SuperBronco CRT Rear Tine Tiller. Used it a bit yesterday after reading the Owners Manual that tells you NOTHING about HOW to use it. Set it deep as it'd go but didn't go very deep. Self Propelled only if you help it along. Made 3 passes about 1 1/2 times the tillers width, then tried going DEEP. Was pretty good after I realized I did NOT need to help the dang thing Forward but merely needed to lift up a lil on the handle to raise tines a dab so the tires would have more weight to pull it along. Changing the pins on tires/axles to go from FreeWheeling to WheelPowered is a bit awkward but not too hard. It however will NOT let you move it ANY if pins are in the wheel powered holes! It went fairly deep then as I went back thru the shallow tilled area but still not as deep as ole Hoppin John. An the Handle I thought was WAY too high on Level ground, was about thigh high then!!! An here I was thinking of lowering the Handle!!!

So now I have two tillers costing enough I coulda had another gun

So the garden is gonna double yet again in size to about 15 feet in width & 80 feet in length. Might end up getting another load of compost mix for the newer sections.

Hoppin John made my hands hurt & my arms & shoulder sore. Big Red however in the short 2 hours tilling showed signs of making my Back muscles hurt like hell. Mainly due to handle going so low I stay bent over. So hopefully I'm still standing come Noon. Figure I might need combination Big Red & Hoppin John to get the size & depth of garden I desire today.

Due to buying a second tiller, Future project seems to be coming into mind of adding onto garage building to house mowers, tillers, etc....