Monday, February 1, 2010

Because It Doesn't Rain On a Monday Night.

"Because it doesn't rain on a Monday night" was the best answer I could think to give our neighbors who wanted to know why I was blinding them with shop lights and dragging wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of compost into the garden at 8:00 in the evening.

Here in GA, we've gone from absolute, destitute, worst drought on record for a ridiculous number of years running to rain. Heavy, consistent rain every three or four days, and that three or four days just always seems to fall on the weekend. Always. However, it wasn't raining tonight, and the man was kind enough to fetch me a cubic yard of compost mix during his lunch hour today and I set out to begin to disperse it through the garden this evening.

Now, last year, the man bought me a wonderful gift. I'll wait why you go look. It was a thing of beauty, but I've never gotten the chance to use the tiller until now. HOLY GOODNESS. I didn't know what to make of a tiller for beds that are tauted to be 'no till' but that sucker tore right through that compressed bed and fluffed it all up so beautifully nice and pretty and I only think I killed myself once while trying to use it. It did a job in five minutes which would have taken me forever to do, and quite honestly, I'd never have loosened it up deep enough by hand.

I caught a flash in my eye while tilling and saw the man had snapped this shot. Look at the bed on the lower right (not the garlic bed) and compare it with the others. Look at how beautifully tilled it is. I was a happy girl.
My holiday gift this year was a wheelbarrow, but I still found out that you can't fill the wheel barrow half way and still expect to maneuver it down the hill to the garden. Yup. Forget the tiller, this, my friends, is how you die. Instead, you need to shovel only 10 shovel fulls and then take it down. Yes, it's tiresome, but it's better than carting it down shovel by shovel as I did last year.

So as it got darker, the shop lights came out and I worked a while longer. I only got about two hours of work in, but I did manage to till up and amend all of the beds in the corner yard.
Tomorrow I'm going to work on filling the boxes we just put the addition on and then if there's any left over I'll do the side yard. If not, a few bags from the store will do just fine. I had to leave it for tonight, however. Why, you ask? It's supposed to rain, of course.
The morning comes early, and thank goodness the Tylenol will be there to greet my sore back. Sweet gardening dreams.

16 comments:

  1. I love the view of your garden from this angle and how your beds are laid out.

    I really need to get one of those rototillers. There's just nothing like fresh overturned soil.

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  2. And I thought I was the only crazy one to work in the garden after dark. I see I'm in good company ;-)

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  3. Night gardening, now that is determination. That tiller is so cool by the way.

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  4. Isn’t it amazing what seems to be happening with the weather lately, looks like we all my have to start adapting our gardens to changing climates. Here in Ireland we generally have fairly mild rainy weather all year round, we just came out of the biggest freeze in sixty years (we almost never get anything worse than a mild frost). They (who ever 'they' are) are predicting colder winters and warmer, wetter summers (how it can get any wetter, I do not know).

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  5. What a great post! Yes, you do have to be careful as to how full you fill your wheelbarrow, and if it starts to fall over, let it go, don't try to stop it or you will wrench your back. That was a wonderful shot your husband took too. Your beds look rich and I can only imagine what they look like filled with all sorts of good things.

    You are an inspiration.

    FlowerLady

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  6. I purchased a small tiller a few years ago and was able to put it to use last year. I used to use a broad fork to double dig and turn over my garden. I had to do the work over several days because an old neck and shoulder injury would give me some trouble.

    I love how quickly the tiller works the soil. Within minutes I was done.

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  7. I'm very jealous of your tiller. I keep asking Hubby for one, and he keeps ignoring me. The beds look great. I don't mind trucking the stuff to the beds in the wheelbarrow, as long as I have someone help me to fill it up. That part kills my back.

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  8. Thanks, Thomas. I had to make the most of a very, very small space and putting straight beds wouldn't have worked. That, and I started with the two small square boxes, so the design evolved from there. I thank Granny for showing me rows didn't have to be straight.

    *****
    Liisa, keep the neighbors guessing, that's what I say!

    ***
    Dan, I didn't know what to make of the tiller at first, but it's a dream! I now need to go back in and till in the compost I added. I never know how much to add.

    ***
    Hi Stone Art! Thanks for coming by. Earlier we had the longest cold snap in 15 years. It's just downright odd, the weather is.

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    Thanks, Flowerlady! I stupidly held on to the wheelbarrow as long as I could. I was going down the hill backwards and the weight was pushing me back. I had flashes of this summer when a shopping cart tipped back on me and I let go and made the situation worse by propelling me backwards. Now I know how much I can handle, and to go down the hill forward.

    ***
    GM, the only fork I have is about the width of my hand, so it would have taken me forever to turn the ground without that tiller.

    *****
    The Mom, Never give up. Look on Craigs list or the like for a used one. I'll only use it the once a year, but it's worth it...and he can buy attachments for his own use!

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  9. Gardening at night, perhaps you will start a trend. I have often thought about putting up an outdoor light over part of our garden.

    I'm glad that you like the tiller they sure do make quick work when it comes to turning soil.

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  10. Thanks, Kelly! I've got a long way to go. It rained last night so I'm sure the soil got compressed again so I can top them off.

    ***
    The shop lights were fantastic Mr. H. I usually don't like to use them at night during the gardening season because they attract more bugs than not, but for this, it was really incredibly peaceful to be out there in the evening. We boarder a cow farm and the earthy scent and the lowing of the cattle were so tranquil.

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  11. ribbit I am thinking you must be a young 'old farm girl". You can't be a city slicker. :o) :o)
    John

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  12. John, I'm hoping my mother will see your comment. She'll get a good laugh out of it. I grew up as city as they come and never touched a dirt clod until a couple of years ago. I honestly can't believe it sometimes, myself, how I've taken to this gardening stuff. I can see how people do this their entire lives.

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  13. We used a tiller last year (first year gardener w/ clay soil). Took out most of the clay and mixed 1/4 each - clay, compost, vermiculite, peat moss in a semi-raised bed. Forward to this year ... it has been entirely too cold/rainy/snowy this entire winter in NC, like 10-15 degrees below normal. Would like to go ahead & work the garden, but the days it has been normal or above normal temps have been with about 1.5 inches of rain. But I digress. I am wondering if we should use the tiller again this year. I am scared I will be chopping up whatever worms may have found a home in my garden ??? Where do the worms go in the winter ? Did you find pieces & parts ? LOL !

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  14. You know, Angela, I was wondering the same thing. However, I've never seen hide nor hair of any worm in those beds, so I didn't worry too much about it. If it worries you, think they're far under ground or they'll run for the hills when they hear that tiller a-comin'.

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  15. We did see lots of worms last year as we were digging the clay and also in our compost (a gift straight from my mom's horses). So I've been doing a bit of reading up on worms. Seems they might escape from the tiller ... http://www.learner.org/jnorth/fall1999/jsouth/Update102299.html. Seems people are very passionate about tilling or not tilling ... http://forums.seedsavers.org/showthread.php?p=8704. This is just one of tons of such discussions. : )

    Your tilled beds look sooooo nice. If it ever warms up here, I will go inspect our beds and see if they need to be tilled. I would like to raise them some additional inches this year to make the beds deeper, so I may not need to till at all with a new layer on top. We discovered SFG in raised beds AFTER we had already dug down. Really a shame. Zoysia sod is backbreaking work to dig up ! Our beds are more "ground level" than "raised" currently.

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