Breaking New Ground, The Veggie Garden

After building a house for the four years and having a few surgeries before and after the construction, I'm ready for my veggie garden again. We have a very large yard with nothing landscaped in it, perfect! And mostly sunny! One problem, my husband blew the engine in the rototiller, I mean he blew it. Crankshaft went out the front of the engine...glug..glug..glug, spilt the oil. So we called around to all the local shops and could only rent a tiller with front tines. It wouldn't break new ground.

Someone, had the brilliant idea to turn by hand, ugh. It was slow going then we found this giant rock, probably placed there by us when we were building, actually I know it was....Okay, that will have to be a very deep raised bed for ....say, carrots! We'll be choosy about the soil and leave it undisturbed, we'll have to. This is as far as the two teenagers got, my son and his friend. See all the rocks this spot was growing?

So the next day, 4-21, we traveled to an equipment place and rented huge rototiller with rear tines. Large, impressive, and heavy. It turned out to be fairly useless. The tines rotated in a forward motion and all this power plow would do is walk the ground! It was easy to stick the shovel in the soil and give it a twist, this thing really couldn't do the job.

Fast forward to the following weekend, our weather was close to if not, seventy degrees. My husband, Jack of all Trades, stopped at a lawn and garden place. The owner was kind enough to let us try a used motor from another tiller, same horsepower and all. If it worked great, if not bring it back. Well, it worked, and worked well. This tiller, although 30 to 40 years old, is one tenuous little machine. It's tines rotate towards the operator while it motions forward and although small, it really gets the job done.

He's HE-MAN teen using a crowbar to remove another rock. A good workout in preparation for football season.

I must say, we are fortunate we know owners of a horse farm, and he was willing to deliver manure on his Sunday morning.

Not only one dump truck load, but two.

We spread it rather fast, I even put some on my flowerbeds and there is more for seeding some grass seed later next month. My soil is dusty clay and needs this amending, it makes it so easy.

Look at the difference in the quality of dirt! I never was so excited about dirt...before. I'm anxious to plant but in my area of Maine, Memorial day weekend is the date.

Well, we still have the sandy loam to put in our raised bed, logs to outline the edge of our plot (to discourage critters from digging), and a fence to install. Next weekend will be another busy, exhausting, two day adventure.

In the Garden, breaking new ground.