A new-to-me tiller.

[Smiles Jr.]

I have never been able to afford a good tiller and consequently have had to struggle with either turning my gardens by hand or sometimes I offer to fix or tune up other people's beat-you-to-death tillers and then I get to use it for a day. I do have an old (very old) full sized tractor w/a plow and disk but I have always wanted a 3 pt. hitch tiller. New they range in price from $1k to $2k and used they run $500 to $1000 and I could never swing it financially.

I work on several farmer's equipment around here just because I'm retired and I like to get my hands dirty and be of some use to others. Wednesday when I was welding a neighbor's haybine that had broken he mentioned that he had an old rusty 3 pt. tiller that he hadn't used in years since no-till and shallow-till methods of field prep. became popular. He offered it to me as thanks for all the odd jobs I have done around his place. It needed two new bearings and repair of a broken weld. Well, yesterday I got it all fixed up and WOW! is it ever nice to sit up on the tractor seat and have a machine do the hard work for you.

I broke new ground for a 30'x60' strawberry patch and a 5'x30' patch for some new blackberry plants. And I didn't even break a sweat. Oh yes I did - it was 103F here yesterday and I thought I was gonna die. But the tilling was easy.

 

[Carol Dee]

Smiles, Congratulations on the tiller. My Husband is going to be very envious! You did a lot of tilling in hot weather that would have been impossible with the old gut busters. Have fun (And TRY not to till up the whole yard!)

 

[thistlebloom]

Hey Smiles, that's great! Now that you have a new tiller it sounds like you're enlarging your garden plots.

I can't even imagine 600 square feet of strawberries. That sounds like a lot of work to me!

 

[catjac1975]

Wow now you can make an even bigger garden!!!!Seeing that your saving your self so much work.Haha

 

[lesa]

Congrats! Enjoy all your new space!

 

[vfem]

That sounds handy dandy, you wanna come turn a couple of beds over here for me. I don't want you to run out of room playing with your new toy. Hahaha

 

[dickiebird]

I have never been able to afford a good tiller and consequently have had to struggle with either turning my gardens by hand or sometimes I offer to fix or tune up other people's beat-you-to-death tillers and then I get to use it for a day. I do have an old (very old) full sized tractor w/a plow and disk but I have always wanted a 3 pt. hitch tiller. New they range in price from $1k to $2k and used they run $500 to $1000 and I could never swing it financially.

I work on several farmer's equipment around here just because I'm retired and I like to get my hands dirty and be of some use to others. Wednesday when I was welding a neighbor's haybine that had broken he mentioned that he had an old rusty 3 pt. tiller that he hadn't used in years since no-till and shallow-till methods of field prep. became popular. He offered it to me as thanks for all the odd jobs I have done around his place. It needed two new bearings and repair of a broken weld. Well, yesterday I got it all fixed up and WOW! is it ever nice to sit up on the tractor seat and have a machine do the hard work for you.

I broke new ground for a 30'x60' strawberry patch and a 5'x30' patch for some new blackberry plants. And I didn't even break a sweat. Oh yes I did - it was 103F here yesterday and I thought I was gonna die. But the tilling was easy.

On some of the other forums I frequent this would be known as a GLOAT and they always tell me that without pictures it didn't happen!!
Hint Hint.

THANX RICH

 

[Collector]

Congrats on the tiller, sounds like a major score! We really need pics though you know ,trust but verify. lol

 

[BackerBunch]

Congrats on the new tiller!

 

[Smiles Jr.]

OK here are some pics that I took this morning.

This is the strip along the fence for blackberries. It will also act as a privacy fence.

This is the new strawberry patch.

The existing garden is expanding, too.

Yup! It's getting bigger by the minute.

Here's a pic of my experimental garden. The tall leaves in the foreground are some new kind of horseradish plants. The cages are full of potatoes. Some new heirloom tomatoes from a friend way in the back. And misc. herbs and melons.