Revival of the Merry Tiller

I’m just going to come right out and say it.  I’ve already experienced Mom’s mirth, so here goes.  I’m falling for the tiller. I had put Mom’s beloved Merry tiller out to pasture (in the barn), with no plans of ever bringing it back into service, but the quickly passing Spring panicked me.  I knew she'd get a kick out of my bowing to her might Merry tiller.

I know, I just stated in a recent post that I like to garden with a spade, not a tiller, but I was making such slow progress against the grass that had taken root all over the garden. I decided to give the tiller another try, at least for the initial turnover.  I was just going to till my planting rows, but when it turned out to do such a nice job, and I looked back at the weeds between the rows, and I realized that the layout of the rows wasn’t exactly as I would like to keep it….well, I just decided to till the whole garden. 

It’s not that I have anything against a tiller, exactly, as long as it doesn’t get overused, and as long as it will start without spending 30 minutes of repair time on it every time. From what I’ve been learning, you can overwork your soil, breaking natural relationships between fungus and microbe and root, taking a loss on the valuable carbon stores that lie beneath by exposing them, and causing compaction.   Thirty-five years of Mom and Dad tilling this garden, with great growing success, have caused the whole 40 x 60 ft. area to sink several inches below the pasture around it.  And though they have constantly amended it with compost and mulched leaves, the rate of compaction has outpaced the rate of additions. 

I believe in the no-till method, but it requires a great quantity of mulch to cover the whole garden in the off season and between growing rows during the growing season.  I didn’t have the luxury of so much mulch and the ability to spread it last Fall. 

I began having some “feminine” issues in the summer, and wound up having a laparoscopic hysterectomy in mid October, knocking me completely out of the gardening game for 8 weeks.  Great timing, if you think only of the growing season, but what about cleanup and mulching?  I wasn't able to put the garden to bed, as they say.  Thus, the weeds grew unchecked all Autumn, and had an early, healthy start this Spring.  Good riddance to the girly problems, though, as well as the monthly blood-letting!  I got to keep my ovaries, so instead of going completely nuts immediately, I am still perfectly capable of PMS, as my husband is well aware.

Tilling is difficult when you first begin.  It probably shouldn’t be attempted while PMS is in progress. It takes a while to get the hang of how to make the tiller work for you, rather than letting the tiller drag you all over the place, or digging one deep hole after another.  This latest tilling experience was the best I’ve ever had, probably just because it did it for hours on end. 

I did have some very specific learning experiences, such as how tilling over chicken wire that is buried in the weeds can really add to the amount of time you spend with the tiller, patiently cutting the wire out of the tines.  I also learned that tilling next to the hog panels that I use for tomatoes and peas and other vining plants can be dangerous, as the tiller can jump and smash your hand into the fence….over and over again. 

In my case, this smashing of the hand can also take up a lot of time, as every time I would smash my hand, I would swear loudly.  And every time I would swear loudly, my empath of a dog, Sam, would begin her nervous dance outside the fence until I couldn’t stand it any more, and had to stop tilling and go and console her, so she could go back to playing with Rosie or digging up moles, and stop staring at me with a look of desperation.  I think she danced nervously for a full 30 minutes the first time I smashed my hand, and the consolation took a good 10 minutes.  The empathy is sweet at first, but it sure can become annoying, especially if you’re still in a ranting mode. And she can tell, even if you’re not actually saying anything.

So, the garden is tilled, lessons have been learned, and the rain that is falling outside right now is soaking in well.  I hope to both use and stockpile a lot of mulch materials over the growing season and avoid surgery this year, and perhaps I won’t need to till at all next Spring.  I’ll probably get most of my mulch from the Fall and Spring mowing of the leaves into the storage bin of the Easy Vac.  The Easy Vac is likely an implement for another posting, as I have long had a love/hate relationship with the Easy Vac.