Tilling Times

A couple folks asked about my dear friend John Deere.Well he is a 23 hp diesel with a 54” bucket, mid and rear PTO,  sometimes a 62” mowing deck, sometimes a 5’ pine rake, or a 200lb spreader, middle buster, or 4’ box grader. But for the past few weeks he has had a 4’ tiller attached. Spring and fall are big ‘tilling times’. This is a really mean combination. A friend of ours laughed when i told him about buying the tiller. Now you should know that he farms 1500 acres and has toys like 8 bottom plows, 12’ disc’s that have to fold up to go on the road. 12 row corn planters, and of course combines to harvest it all. When he stopped by one day and saw what i could do with the tiller on my little .75 acres (yes just 3/4 of an acre) he agreed that it was just what i needed.

So what have we been tilling? Well I'll till ya….

 

 

 

You remember earlier this week the new Butterfly Meadow. Today was tilling the bed for the Blue Berries we bought over the weekend. Besides removing the weeds i also had to till in 3 lbs. of pelleted sulfur to acidify the soil so the pH would drop from 6.5 to 5.5.

Somehow i got a little carried away and over tilled about twice what i needed. So after planting the three Blueberry plants we have, we now need to go back up to Tractor Supply again for 3 more (and maybe a bunny if Beatrice doesn’t notice :-) ] There was this pile of pavers left from when i expanded the asparagus bed and they were just begging to go somewhere pleasant and shady. Now these were magic pavers because they could sing. The problem was that they only knew one song, “Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me”. So there was just one spot for them, the orchard. Here is the picture tale.

 

 

 

 

 

Somehow i forgot the picture of the park bench that is now sitting on them between the apple trees. I wonder if Beatrice will share it with me??????

Last but not least was a quick planting of the Red Onion sets we got last weekend. This year i was smart and put  them at the end of a plot so they won’t be disturbed during the crop rotation later in the season. I’m always amazed how these almost dead looking things turn into such wonderful tasting delights. Now it is time for ICE CREAM. I’m not sure whether to eat it or put it on my sore back????