Keeping my tiller employed

[jinman]

I typically use my tiller at the beginning of the season and then once again at the end of the garden season to till under the organics. This year, we have a small garden and have lots of ground left fallow. It gets covered in weeds and nutgrass (nutsedge). I'm too embarrassed to take a picture of the weed covered soil, but after tilling around the garden I took the pictures below with my cell phone. The last two pictures are of my asparagus. The smaller plants are from this year and the larger plants near the fence are from last year. In the foreground of the last picture is a VERY healthy ragweed plant.:ashamed:

We use the 7' plastic netting for a fence to keep out the deer. It works well and is super easy to take a section down to allow me and the tractor into the garden. However, cutting weeds grown up in the fence is a hand job. A weed eater would just destroy the fence. I just let the fencline grow up with weeds and grass while trying to keep the garden area clean. The tiller stays employed all through the summer this way.

 

[Chuck52]

I use my tractor tiller the same way....prepare the planting bed in the spring and till under the residue in the fall, and put up the deer fence between those times. However, I'm slowly going to all raised beds and this may be my last year to use the tiller in that garden spot. I am finishing up a permanent deer and coon-proof fence, and since I have sweet corn in there the fence needs to get finished before the corn gets to the coon-feeding stage. Right now I have some finished fence and some parts just closed off by cattle panels.

I'm planning to put a hot wire at the top of my 2x4 welded wire fence to discourage the coons. The deer-proofing will involve obstacles inside the fence bridged by a visual barrier where needed.

After I get that done, what to do with the tiller? I'll probably start another garden area! Can't give up that tiller. It's too much fun churning the dirt with it!

Chuck

 

[Patriotic Stabilist]

My garden is growing up in weeds, I mowed part of it yesterday.

I told hubby I'm pulling the broccoli and like the cuke plant that is left and he can till all that. Then the first time ever I'm just throwing a variety of flower seeds out there, watering and letting them go. If it looks to bad will just till those up too.

About all that will be left is my staked tomatoes, bell peppers, and banana peppers, the rest is gone.

 

[Baby Grand]

This year I'm doing like jinman - nice looking garden pics, by the way. Typically I use the tiller at the beginning and end of the season. This year has been very cold and wet here in New England, and the wait between tilling and planting has dragged on (shaking fist at the sky), so the tiller has been doing a lot of weed duty and will continue to until the seeds are in and the mulch is down.

 

[Chuck52]

Here in Missouri, we can get some crops in for a fall garden. I usually try late beans, turnips, rutabagas, beets and such, and some things seem to do better as the weather cools off. This year I may try snap peas, since they did absolutely nothing this spring. What works where you are?

Chuck

 

[Patriotic Stabilist]

I use our tiller year around. I till the garden in the winter too, so at least 3 more times a year after the garden dies out and is tilled in. It keeps the weeds in the soil down.

 

[Bartcephus]

Jinman,

Your garden looks GREAT! (Especially compared to mine.) This is the first year I had a tractor driven tiller. Last year, I kept having uses for it all summer long. (Gardens, yards, food plots, leveling lots, etc.) Weeds have inched in on me this year and I haven't had the time off work or honey do's to weed the gardens like I have in the past years. (OK, perhaps its that I'm getting older and lazy.) I have a lot of the nutgrass (nutsedge) invading my lawn and gardens as well. That stuff is hard to kill. Can't pull it... it just multiplies. Waxy leaves... weed killer hard to soak in. Darn "nuts" in the ground that weed killer has a tough time with too. I have found that the more I cultivate, the better I can control nutgrass. Dang job keeps me from working. (in the garden) So, Cheers my fellow Texan.

 

[jinman]

My wife picked cucumbers this morning (20 lb) and I sprayed with Sevin as soon as she finished since the rain had washed the plants. I saw only one squash bug and smashed it with my foot. Our little garden is doing really well this year and I think the banana and bell pepper plants have so many peppers the plants are stunted. For some reason, peppers love growing in my soil. I think I'll have a good tomato crop too if the heat doesn't get stuff. Our onions this year are excellent. I love chopping the green tops to put in salads. Being retired so I can stay on top of watering and bugs is a great advantage. I still have not had my soil tested and need to do that.

 

[jinman]

Here in Missouri, we can get some crops in for a fall garden. I usually try late beans, turnips, rutabagas, beets and such, and some things seem to do better as the weather cools off. This year I may try snap peas, since they did absolutely nothing this spring. What works where you are?

Chuck

Chuck, I'd love to have a fall garden, but our summer heat drags on until late October. By the time we can get plants going, we have to worry about frost. It's often like hot summer one day and a frost the next. Summer drags out and then there is no fall before winter hits. My best bet for a fall garden is a greenhouse either to start plants or grow them. Using a swamp cooler, I could keep the interior of a greenhouse cool enough. I really want to build a greenhouse, but just can't do it yet because of other priorities.

 

[Western]

Jim,
looks good. Wish I had your drive this year:ashamed: I tilled my "dust bowl" early in the Spring, if that's what you call what we had.

It is so dry at my place right now, I figure I would have to change my tiller tines to some good carbide tipped concrete blades! If it stay's this dry and follows our normal summer patterns of "no rain and heat" your nut sedge patch will be a winner in the "green" category.