For today's post, I bring you a story with 2 plots and a rototiller.
I finally got around to hauling my rototiller up to the community garden to till up my 2 new plots. I have 4 plots at the community garden this year, but 2 of them will be used by a friend. The 2 plots that I've had for several years don't need to be tilled up this year, they're currently covered with a layer of mulch.
The 2 new plots that I got for this year had not been used for several years, so they need a fair amount of work. Last fall, I was planning on adding 1 plot to the 2 I already had, and the plot that I wanted had not been used for a couple of years and was full of grass. In October of last year, I tilled up that plot and then covered it with black plastic to keep the grass from growing back. I wanted to till that plot up again this spring, and the newest plot also needed to be worked up.
When I got up to the garden, I took a couple of "before" pictures of the plots. This is plot number 3.
This is plot number 4. I got this plot at the request of my friend. The middle of this plot was relatively free of weeds, but the edges were all grown in with grass.
I wanted to run the tiller through plot #3 first because I thought it would be easier to till up, having been tilled last fall. Before I could till the plot, I had to remove all the plastic, and all the rocks and wood holding down the plastic. The grass managed to find all the gaps and holes in the plastic covering the plot.
It took me a while to grind up this plot because I did overlapping runs with the tiller. The tiller leaves a little strip in the middle of it's path because of the space necessary for the drive shaft for the tines. Overlapping runs takes care of that problem. The result was pretty good. I still need to pull out a lot of the grass roots so it doesn't just grow back. I'll do that as I plant the plot.
Then it was time to till up the newest plot.
This plot took a lot of work because of an abundance of rocks. I kept stopping to pick out the rocks that the tiller kicked up to the surface. I had to make multiple passes through the area with a lot of grass to break up the sod and the roots. This plot will need a fair amount of work to remove as much of the grass as possible to keep it from just growing back in.
I'm kind of tempted to run the tiller through plot #4 again, across the direction of the first tilling, but I'm not sure if I have that much ambition.
Now that the plots are tilled up, I'm going to be planting potatoes in plot #3, hopefully starting this week. I still have to cut the seed potatoes and let them sit for a couple of days before I plant them. I'm not going to be using plot #4 myself, that one is for my friend to plant.
That's all I have for this post, thanks for checking it out!
