Whats a good price to pay to till gardens

[gordon]

Patrick thanks for the kind words. Remember, I to went through the same learning curve. Mine just went quicker because I was putting more hours on the tiller. The hardest thing around here is that the soil varies from hard clay to sand depends on what part of the county I'm working in.

So like anything else when I first started using the 3pt tiller I more than likely looked like quite the spaz. Trying to get the perfect till job done./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Gordon

 

[patrickg]

Gordon,
For better or worse, its tilled, re-tilled (etc.) I quit after 4-5 passes and no reduction in clod size even at really slow speeds. First session it was a bit wet but I didn't know it until I looked at the tines and the whole thing was a giant roller made of clay. Took 20-30 minutes with a sharpshooter (narrow pointed spade) to get most of it off.

Today a friend told me our "last frost" date is April 15 AND we have already planted tomatos, peppers, and onions with green tops above ground. Not worried about the potatos, burried onion sets, or seeds, they will be OK but we'll either get lucky or get busy replanting the tomatos and peppers. Got carried away and planted $50 worth of wild flower seeds, a special Tex-Oklahoma blend from a seed farm down by Fredricksberg, TX. I have been told that it is funny that I should spend good money to plant weeds that others pay to spray.

When you are called on to till a garden spot that hasn't been used before, do you plow it, disk it xxx it, or what? After it was too late for me I was told that I should have used a systemic herbacide like Roundup to kill all the grass and then plow it but since I got it plowed by the plow fairy I missed my chance to do that. Oh well, next time!

Patrick

 

[gordon]

If you do think your going to get some frost you can drape some plastic over the plants making a small greenhouse for protection. Just a thought.

As for the new gardens so far I've only done three or four that have been from scratch. On those I used the teeth on the boxblade dropped down all the way to loosen up the dirt before tilling. Not the best way but it did get the job done.

I'm supposed to be getting a bottom plow and also a middle buster in the next couple of weeks if a little side job works out. Sort of a part barter part pay job. Time will tell on that one. We still haven't come all the way on a meeting point for price yet.

Gordon