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About Hardy Shrub Roses
About Heathers
About Flowering Crabs
wildlife habitat
Annuals Biennials Perennials
Culinary Herbs
The Healing Herbs
The Fragrant Herbs
Shakespearean and Bible Herbs
Do you Really Need A Tiller
Insect Attack
Flowers for Cutting
Pruning Pointers
Houseplants Clean the Air
Recipes Fresh from the Garden
The Gold Plated Gardener
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| Do You Really Need A Tiller? |
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| Do you really want a tiller? Do you really need a tiller? Think hard before you answer. The tiller we own today cost more than my first four cars--combined.Sure, we can justify it: we grow a huge vegetable garden each summer, can a lot, freeze some, pickle some, sell some. Additionally, we cultivate a great many trees, shrubs and evergreens for our nursery. Back when I was a full-time farmer, I ran our tiller up into the pickup and took it from house to house every spring to do custom work. While you may not expect to use a tiller on such an ambitious scale, you may have convinced yourself that you need one. Before you dart out to the local hardware store for instant gratification, consider: A tiller will not make you look good. Lamborghinis make you look good. So does mink. Tillers make you look hot and sweaty and do not impress the neighbors. A tiller will not reproduce. Beasts of burden provide you with an offspring every year. Calves, colts and donkeys can be sold to offset the cost of keeping the parents. You will have to feed your tiller, too, but a Troy-Bilt won’t give you a Mantis every spring. Tillers are expensive. What would you have to do in that garden, for how many years, to recapture the cost of the tiller? It’s a cliché that you get what you pay for, but anything less than the most rugged products on the market will not perform as you expect. Consider renting, or hiring someone like me. Consider the aerobic benefits of a spading fork. Tillers are noisy, smelly, and cumbersome. After all, we’re talking about that abomination, an internal combustion engine. And any tiller solid enough to turn last fall’s vegetable patch into this spring’s seedbed requires strength to manhandle (I’d rather sound sexist than write “person-handle,” which is meaningless anyway). Are you ready for the moment when your 300-pound tiller hits a buried rock and goes airborne? Take this easy test: if you can throw 40-pound bales of hay onto the pickup all afternoon and go dancing after supper, you’re ready for the Big Machine. Babies are cunnin’, but....Every full-sized tiller, it seems, has spawned a preemie --you know, the one that the model in the picture is holding up with her pinkie. These little eggbeaters may actually be the compromise you’re looking for. Once your garden plot has been turned over, the 40-pound baby is adequate for cultivating between rows and edging flower beds. As for lifting it with your pinkie--don’t try this at home. Before indulging your aching back with any make or model of mechanical tiller, do the smart thing and consult one of the comparisons published by Consumer Reports, National Gardening, Horticulture magazine or the like. If you’re still convinced you need that tiller, well, you’ve been warned...go for the gratification! |
| Palmyra | ME | 04965-4033 |
 shepherdsgdn@hotmail.com |
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| Visitors: 03183 |