Tiller First time with tiller

[yoyo]

Yesterday was the first chance I have used my new First Choice 52' Tiller. I laid out the plot for a new garden about 50'x75'. I was worried that the Kioti CK25HST would not be able to handle it, but it had no problem. I had to get in Low range and go as slow as I could crawl to keep the Tiller from jumping to much and to keep the load down on the engine. This ground is all clay and it was hard. I managed to get it the full depth in one pass. Now, what should I use to amend the clay to get more of a good garden loam soil?

 

[gws]

The biggest problem I have with my tiller is getting the ground to soft. My yanmar tiller will till up the ground so much that you just sink into it when you try to walk on it.

I also have issues at the end of rows when Ieither dig a ditch or pile up a pile of dirt.

 

[shoppintractors]

<font color="blue">I was worried that the Kioti CK25HST would not be able to handle it, but it had no problem. I managed to get it the full depth in one pass. </font>

As you probably know there has been some discussions in the Kioti forum regarding the capabilities of the CK25. This is excellent news!

<font color="blue">Now, what should I use to amend the clay to get more of a good garden loam soil? </font>

I use compost. I collect all my leaves in the fall and let them breakdown in a compost pile. Then I rototill them into the garden the following spring.

Don

 

[RobS]

Growing up we had clay soil. My dad was quite the gardener, which seems to have skipped me. He always added sand to the clay soil, in addition to plenty of compost and such. Said the sand grains would break up the clay. Not sure if it's true but I do remember shoveling a lot of sand into the garden plots /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Bowhunter]

The sand also helps a lot with drainage. A soil that is mostly clay will stay wet for a long time after a rain. Some people I know use sawdust from furniture factories or lumber yards for compost. A lumber yard may be better because you'd be more likely to get pure wood and less likely to get plywood, MDF, and the glue that comes with it. Till this into your soil in the fall so it can break down over the winter. Leaves and grass clippings like mentioned above also add good nutrients to the soil.

 

[EastTexFrank]

Aren't tillers wonderful????

I've used sand in the past but usually on smaller areas than your 50' x 75'. It'll take quite a bit of sand to make a difference if your clay is real bad. Just add anything organic and till it in ... the more the better. If you can compost it, better still. It just depends what you have access to. I used to find that riding stables were a great source of material. They are usually only too happy for you to get rid of some of their stuff from cleaning the stalls, manure, straw and all. It's great stuff once it's composted. Around where I am, dairy farms are another good source although it needs to be composted ... too many weed seeds otherwise. I just use anything I can get my hands on. If it's fresh manure, I usually compost it but if I do add it directly to the garden, I usually do it in the late fall after clean-up, and let it break down some over the winter before tilling and planting in the spring.

Gary, I never have found a good solution to the trench or pile problem at the end of rows. I even tried tilling in a circle once. Now, after I finish tilling, I make one last pass, tilling in one direction. At least that way I end up with the trench at one end of the garden and a pile at the other.

 

[Glenn9643]

Some people I know use sawdust from furniture factories or lumber yards for compost.
Emphasize the last two words: FOR COMPOST
Sawdust straight from the mill added to the soil will rob the soil of nitrogen as it decomposes. Sawdust can be used in conjunction with "greens" in your compost pile, and helps to provide the needed carbons and eliminate stinky compost piles. Sawdust or wood chips added directly to the soil won't rot nearly as fast as you would think. Adding them into a hot compost pile will speed things up a great deal.

 

[Mark4510]

I am not much of a gardner but I know that (as stated previously) the mix of shavings, manure and straw we pull out of the horse stalls is in demand. One time there were a couple of guys loading the shavings that got into a pretty heated discussion regarding the best way to compost and how much to add to any given soil. What I do recall, which has already been mentioned here, is that you probably need to add something like grass clippings to keep the nitrogen levels up.

You might also wander over to Country by Net and see if any of the experts there can help.

Mark

 

[Bird]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Sawdust or wood chips added directly to the soil won't rot nearly as fast as you would think )</font>

I guess it depends on how fast you think it will break down. I never bothered with "composting", but I tilled in all the sawdust and wood chips I could get directly into the garden and was actually amazed at how fast it all broke down and disappeared.

 

[RonR]

I've been reading about fixing clay, since I have a lot of it. From what I read, adding sand to the clay is a no-no, unless you mix it 7 parts sand to 1 part clay; this could mean adding up to a foot of sand, which isn't very practical.

Any less, the material tells me, and you end up with a concrete like mixture.

What was recommended to me was adding a LOT of compost. I'm heading to the zoo-doo place and getting a coupla trailer loads of that to try.

I'm also sending in a soil sample before spending any more $$$$.

As far as tilling, if it's for a garden, deep might be good. I tried deep where I was planting grass and it was a mess. Any more than 2" is way overkill for grass. The ground never did firm up for the grass seed.

My two cents.
ron

 

[Glenn9643]

I've never tried it that way myself Bird. I've read cautions in several places against adding wood chips directly into the garden, but that may have been referring to where you were actively growing plants. Overwintering may allow them plenty of time to rot down before planting? I've got so many grass clippings this time of year that I'm running short of carbon sources to add to compost piles. Wood chips and sawdust work well there too!

 

[SPIKER]

if you do add the grass and the saw dust together it is OK, but do not add MUCH of either alone as they will bump the PH up or down depending on WHAT you add. composting them will stop that problem. as for adding SAND to the clay it will help but very little at a time and wait, what is actually BETTER is adding GYPSUM to the clay which binds to the clay and forms a sand like partical. this is better for the soil. drywall works well and if you can get some dropped off free from people who do it for a living (drywalling houses) ones that SCRAP OUT the houses, the scrap hunks are small and till in pretty well if tilled in while they are HARD, don't let them set & get soft very long as they then tend to NOT break appart as well. (found out the hard way I figured tilling int he soft board would be easier, boy was I wrong! I tilled in 3 pick up loads, (my brother does drywall hanging & finishing for a living) I loaded it up and got $ to get rid of it! /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif spread it out in single layers across the garden, left it set & rained on it for 3 days, tried tilling and it basically pulled ahead rather than chunking it up, tossed on NEW load and tilled it same day broke up into small fragments very fast & worked great. I kept back a bunch of small chunks & runners and laid them down between the rows, to walk on last year, worked out great!!! kept the weeds down and you could walk into a WET garden and not get muddy. last year was 1st year for the garden @ it's new location, this year we had 10 times the produce as we did last year!!! still picking cucumbers like mad the tomatos all seemed to not care for it very well, but then it dried out and baked them pretty good, the rains recently sure perked them up good though. they taste OK to me, but the woman says they are acidy... pickels oh boy are they good & sweet though! taters grew like snot, then got ate to the dirt in a weeks time by tater bugs, (I DON'T and WON't use sprays/dusts) must have picked & smashed 5000 of them buggers!. then the dang deer ate 3 rows of beans flat too! (now woman changed her stance on deer hunting! /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif darn weed water has to be cleaned now1! hahaha. we actually canned probably 25~30 qts of beans still ... same with the peas. stupid high winds wipped out my sweet corn, I got 8 ears only (still a few left) they seemed to have cross bread with the indian/ornimental corn I planted down wind of the sweet corn some how, tasted great just the same! /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif just a few blue marbled kernels, kind of dressed em up! lol. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

I got one volintier pumpkin which has 4 or 5 NICE pumkin fruits on the vines too... 3 are bigger than a beach ball and perfict round ones!

the RED taters did OK but the white are still growing, and have pushed them selves OUT of the dirt! not sure if the rain caused that or just the rapid groth? they are still going though...

Onions did REALLY well, peeled a RED one last week and cleared the house! man NEVER had an onion make you cry like that, but it wasn't hot or spicey tasting very good flavor, but man what a powerfull scent! planted red, white vedilias and yellow hots ones. not sure what a HOT one would have done! hahaha, got to dig them soon or else they are gonna rot in the ground... any pointers for drying them?

Mark M /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[markls8]

WARNING! WARNING! Danger Will Robinson!

Adding drywall to soil as an amendment is an absolute NO NO! ESPECIALLY for growing vegetables for human consumption.
It was a while back that I researched this topic for myself so I do forget a lot of the details, but the manufacturers of drywall that I contacted directly recommend against it, even when the land use is not for raising crops for human consumption. IIRC there are certain additives for mould control and other toxins in modern drywall that make it risky stuff to use for this purpose. My own academic background is Biology, and I am an astute practicing environmentalist, like to recycle just about anything, and even I would not do this after doing the research that I did.
Just wanted to chime in in case anyone else was considering doing this. Gypsum specifically made as a soil amendment - YES, absolutely the right stuff for clay. Dry wall - NO.
- Brian.

 

[MarkV]

Check with the local municipalities or waste management companies in your area to see if they compost yard waste. Land fills are getting full so fast that many areas have gone to separate pick up for yard waste that they compost and give away as a community service free or for a small fee. Around here the city dug two huge trenches that they dump yard waste after running them through a chipper. Every other year they doze out one of the pits for the next year and leave the compost for anyone who wants it. I take my tractor and 1 ton dump truck over and fill up whenever I can find the time. It has been a great amendment for our red clay soil.

MarkV

 

[bandit67]

Out here we have a lot of clay, though it's not that pretty red stuff you guys in NC have, and it's usually so dry it's like bedrock. The quickest, easiest thing I did at our last house was to pick up some compost mix from the local landscape supply yard. It consisted of manure and pine bark chips. Pine bark is used out here extensively when planting trees - it supposedly breaks up clay when mixed in, and so far, I've had great luck getting trees established quickly by mixing in plenty of pine bark (very fine chips).

If you go that route, get the 'coolest' (as opposed to hot) compost mix they sell. You'll need to do at least 1/3 compost to 2/3 clay soil. Till it in real good this fall, then cover with grass clippings, etc. to sit over the winter. Then add all grass clippings, leaves, and kitchen organic leftovers you can get ahold of over the course of the fall and winter - I'd just dig holes and bury it in a few spots in the garden area, so it could break down.

Then come spring, till it again real good to get everything all mixed together, and you should have a decent garden soil to get started with. Keep in mind, that next spring, your garden soil may be a bit 'hot', and you'll notice it in some veggies, like tomatoes (they'll be a little bit more acidic), but the following year, it should be perfect. I ended up with some real dark brown, well draining, high quality soil after doing it that way, and it started out as a light tan, non-organic dead dirt. The only sand I ever added was when the weight bags got old and ratty after sitting in the pickup bed over the winter, so the sand amount was negligible - I really don't think you need to bother adding sand to the garden soil - a good organic soil will drain very well on it's own.

Just make sure you don't set your new garden soil down in a hole, or "container" of regular clay soil surrounding it, or all the water will end up sitting in the garden with no way of draining into the adjacent less porous clay.

 

[scrinch]

I want to add to this that you have to keep adding organic material year after year to maintain the high quality soil that you have created. The organic material eventually breaks down and only the clay particles remain, so you have to keep replacing it with new stuff. I till in compost throughout the garden each spring, and add manure to the specific spots where I am planting. Everything but the beans looks and tastes great this year!