first tilling of the year

Finally the ground was just dry enough to till the surface, but only an inch or so deep. With the new carburetor on the tiller the job was much easier and quicker than it has been the past couple years. I was able to incorporate the trash left to winter over into the upper layer of the soil. As it turned out I also was turning under a fine crop of weeds. That's Ok, the weeds will add Nitrogen to the soil. Of the four garden areas, only one could have been tilled deeply, in the other three I turned up a layer of mud, so it will be a little while before I can till deeply and plant anything.

Anyone else tried to break ground this year?

We've got blooms on our tomatoes and summer squash. Our potatoes, beets, carrots, cabbage and brussel sprouts are growing well. I've also seen some of our aspargus is up. We still have to plant beans, purple hull peas, okra and corn.

I gave up tilling and am making permanent concrete block raised beds. Hopefully they will help keep the weeds under control better. I'm planning on laying cardboard down in the walkways and covering it with several inches of wood mulch.

I don't till, haven't in years. Instead, I try to put all kinds of organic material in the garden in the fall, then leave it alone all winter. The worms do a good job of tilling it so it's nice and loose come spring.

'round here the worms only work the top two inches, and the hard pan of heavy clay that's just below that only gets aerated by either the tiller or the plow. Between the drought last year, and this years very wet start (4 inches more rain than normal) The clay is especially packed, even under the mulch and debris left over winter.

12acrehome wrote:'round here the worms only work the top two inches, and the hard pan of heavy clay that's just below that only gets aerated by either the tiller or the plow. Between the drought last year, and this years very wet start (4 inches more rain than normal) The clay is especially packed, even under the mulch and debris left over winter.

We have the same problem here. Too much clay. We've been building the soil since moving here, but it's still not like what we see up north.