Rotary Tiller Use

[sierrareef]

Hi all. This is my first post to your forum - I just found it, liked it and registered.

I have a moderate, in-town yard and I'd like to begin to do some serious landscaping. It's a sloped yard and I need to level areas by creating retaining walls. I thoguht about purchasing a rear tine Rotary Tiller to help me loosen the soil so I can dig it up and move it.

It's a large enough yard that I'll only work on it once in a while - I'm not going to destroy myself by trying to get it all done in a few weekends - I couldn't afford it anyway. I tell you this because I'm not interested in renting - otherwise I'd be renting for who knows how many weekends.

So, would a Rotary Tiller work for this? It's too much work for a pick axe and I'm also not ready to rent a small tractor.

Any thoughts?

[opabinia51]

I wouldn't rush out and buy a tiller, you can rent them for pretty cheap. Yes, using a tiller once would help you to move the soil around. Though, provided that you don't have hard Clay like Grey and a few of the members, you probably don't need a tiller. If the soil is dry and hard, just soak it with the sprinkler for a few hours or for a day and it will loosen up. Then, just use a shovel and a wheel barrel.

Long term tilling will either turn your good soil into sand or it will further harden your clay soil.

As you are moving the soil around, find some leaves in your area and add them to the soil before piling more soil in an area. This will add nutrients to the soil.

[sierrareef]

Good advise - thanks.

[farmgirl]

I wouldn't rush out and buy a tiller, you can rent them for pretty cheap. Yes, using a tiller once would help you to move the soil around. Though, provided that you don't have hard Clay like Grey and a few of the members, you probably don't need a tiller. If the soil is dry and hard, just soak it with the sprinkler for a few hours or for a day and it will loosen up. Then, just use a shovel and a wheel barrel.

Long term tilling will either turn your good soil into sand or it will further harden your clay soil.

As you are moving the soil around, find some leaves in your area and add them to the soil before piling more soil in an area. This will add nutrients to the soil.

Why would using a tiller further harden a clay soil?

[opabinia51]

Even in clay soil, there are micro pockets of air which, are destroyed with tilling. Also the soil aggregates that clay soil is comprised of are broken down further with the increased degredative action of a tiller. The recombined aggegrates will be composed of even smaller particles that the initial aggregates were and therefore make a more compact soil. This results in all the nutrients that were (and are) stored in the soil being that much harder to get out of the soil.

Yes, something that I recently learned is that clay soil is not devoid of nutrients, it is just that the soil aggregates are so impervious to to chemical and physical breakdown that the nutrients are locked up.

Sandy soils on the other hand are more or less devoid of nutrients with very little soil aggregates.

[farmgirl]

Thanx for explaining why tilling clay can make it worse.

What about tilling in compost and peat? That has been what I have been doing the past couple of years in my clay soil. It seems to actually be much much better over the past couple of years! Garden is actually doing real good this year whereas the first two years it was pretty pitiful! Yahoo! Finally! I even tried raised beds last year and it was still pretty bad, despite mixing in alot of peat. So, this year, I just took the raised beds out and tilled the entire garden and built mounds to plant watermelon, canteloupe, zucchini, and okra. I also built dikes around my tomatoes and must say they are looking really fantastic!!! Woo hoo!! Plus they are producing tomatoes galore so far--still am waiting on them to ripen, though. I also am having real good luck with my bean plants looking pretty healthy, despite putting chicken bedding (rich in chicken poop) around them! Peppers plants look pretty good, but so far only one pepper. Also put in a perrienial section this year of strawberries and two plants of rhubarb--still look good and healthy!! But my onion sets are still quite small and don't look like they are thriving.
Still, I guess the garden god is looking down on me in favor despite the "no-no's" I have done.
I would like to also have my first fall garden this year!

[opabinia51]

A word on peat;

Peat contains little or no nutrients and it is good at holding moister but, it is nearly impossible to know if you have actually achieve putting moisture into it. Even if peat is soaked through on the top and bottom, the peat may be dry as a bone in the center.

Also, the harvesting of peat from peat bogs is a current environmental nightmare.

Anyway, healthy alternatives are:

Cocoa Bean Hulls (a byproduct of the chocolate industry)
Mulched Leaves (Apple are best then, Maple and down the list we go)

Leaves are great because they are free and chalk a block full of nutrients.

[farmgirl]

Thanx!
I don't have any apple seeds yet! (But hope to put in a small orchard soon!!)
Also have just planted some silver maples interspersed to replace the elms that line my drive. (Ugh, I hate elms along a drive way) so I don't have many maple leaves yet....
So, just mostly elm trees and evergreens here...