Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living breaking new ground for a garden

I have a garden that was built long before I came to live here. it butts right up to the garage so there's a section between the garage and propane tank that is useless. I want to extend the garden out a little more and bring in some dry compost from the local feed lot.
what's the best way to break up the hard ground? by hand with a shovel? skidsteer with forks/bucket? I have a tiller that's about 20" wide and walk behind that I don't think will do the job solo.
is it better to get the ground moist or just do it in the spring when it is a little wetter?
if it were in the field I'd use a chisel plow, but that's not an option here.

Thanks

This is a common problem out here in the Desert because of the high Clay content. It gets hard as Concrete and the only way to break it up for a start is to soak it for a few days and then hit it with the Tiller just before it dries up again and not too sloppy.

Start with a mattock.



Starting from the edge put your back into it and break in small increments...bringing it toward you and continue forward. Yeah, I know you are walking over plowed ground, but do it anyway.

This won't cure hard pan but legumes will overtime.

Do these require the choke to be set before it will start in cold weather?

I've used a mattock,but am really a believer in a sharp shovel. Years of irrigating in CO 'dobe made me think of a shovel as the answer, in most cases. If you can get some of it to break, your tiller can probably chew it up. Some moisture never hurts, getting started.

the nice thing is it will be tied into the existing garden, so I'll have a loose edge to start on. our soil out here is pretty hard when it's dry, much like southern colorado. I have a couple Pulaskis that are a little bigger than mattock, I'll try them as well, hadn't thought of that. Thanks for the advice guys!

6 or 8 years ago my mom wanted a garden spot....

The spot had been a grassy field for years, since I was a kid.
She called the local plowboy who tilled gardens for a fee.
He came over with a 40-50hp Kubota and a 6' rototiller on the PTO.
I couldn't believe how good he made it look in short order.
Not even any sod left.
It was 30 bucks.
Or you could rent a tractor and tiller.

I have one of those for my 45hp tractor.

It's a beast!

Problem is, you have a way bigger garden when you get done playing with it!

Well there ya go Ingalls! Now just get Mr. Edwards to come over and lend a hand and you'll be sproutin maters in no time!



I couldn't resist Ryan.

I break up new ground with an IH240 Utility tractor and a 48" KingKutter tiller. Do you have any neighbors with a tractor mounted tiller that could swing over for 1/2 hour or so?

Isn't THAT the truth! My 12' x 14' garden plan turned into 12' x 90' and didn't do worth a hoot so it went back into grass the next year. The wife wanted a garden and I asked if she was going to weed it and she said "nope". She wasn't lying either...

I don't unfortunately

If you want to do traditional row planting and tilling, you might think of covering the entire area as soon as you can get in there in the spring with black poly, and keep it there for as long as possible to let the sun kill off the grass. Then till and plant and keep up with almost daily and diligent weeding until you get the area established for vegetables.

Another method that that I prefer for raising a lot of food, and use at my at my 35X60' home garden, is to plant in raised beds. To do this build and lay out as many 4X10' boxes built with 2X10" lumber as you care to. I don't use treated lumber, and have had some of these that are still solid, and in use for well over 10 years. Under each box I simply laid out sheets of cardboard or newspaper over the grass and filled them with compost for $20 a yard loaded into my pickup from the local greenhouse. Once you get these going and mulched with leaves and additional compost now and again, you will have a very productive, till-free, well drained, earthworm rich, and virtually weed free garden. In between my boxes I mulch heavily with leaves and keep the rows wide enough for a wheelbarrow, with an even wider row down the middle for my four-wheeler and trailer. I also attach a 2X4" cap all the way around my beds for seating while working.

I'm a fan of raised beds. Advocates of raised bed farming suggest you can grow more per square foot than in a standard, ground level garden plot.

An old Italian man lived alone in the country. It was Spring and he wanted to dig his tomato garden, as he had done every year, but it was very hard work for the aging man as the ground was hard. His only son, Vincent, who used to help him, was currently in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament:

Dear Vincent,
I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my tomato garden this year. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. If only you were here my troubles would be over. I know you would dig the plot for me.

Love Dad

A few days later he received a letter from his son:

Dear Dad,
Not for nothing, but don't dig up that garden. That's where I buried the BODIES.
Love Vinnie

At 4 a.m. the next morning, FBI agents and local police arrived at the old man's house and dug up the entire area. However, they didn't find any bodies, so they apologized to the old man and left.

That same day the old man received another letter from his son.

Dear Dad,
Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That's the best I could do under the circumstances.
Love Vinnie

We Italians are smart folks, eh? And we really like our fresh vegies.

Geno

If I'm breaking up ground by hand I like a four time garden fork

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=garden+fork&t=ffsb&ia=products

they seem to break up soil better than just turning it over with a shovel or spade.

Once done, I'm a really big fan of "No-till" gardening, heavy on the mulch. If not raised beds, lay out your beds and paths, add soil amendments of your choice, cover areas to be planted with cardboard (know anyone in the appliance business?). Cut 4-6" holes for started plants, or leave strips between pieces of cardboard for "rows" of carrots etc that are direct seeded. Cardboard works great in the raised beds also.

Once planted, cover the cardboard and any exposed soil around the base of plants (once they're established and the soil is warmed up) with straw, old hay, leaves, grass clippings, etc.

Drip system works best, but rain will get thru the cardboard by way of holes for plants and area for the row vegies. Or soaker hoses under the cardboard work great too and they don't get sun rot that way.

End of year, just leave the cardboard and mulch down to rot into the ground, be eaten by the "good bugs" (you have pill bugs or roly polies there?) and earthworms. Put down any more mulch you can acquire, the neighbors' leaves, old molded hay from yours or the neighbors' horses etc (sometimes you cna get some cheap from feed stores if any of theirs got wet.

Come next spring, pull the mulch aside and get to planting. Add extra fertilizer around the base of the new plants.

Why dig or run a tiller every year unless you need the exercise? I'm getting too old for that and I love established gardens for that reason. You're lucky someone left you one, or at least part of what you need.

Good luck this year,

Geno

PS, this book changed my gardening forever. I don't do it completely that way, but I do a whole lot less weeding, tilling, etc.

Stout, R. (1955). How to have a Green Thumb without an Aching Back: A New Method of Mulch Gardening. NewYork: Exposition Press.

She wrote others you may be able to find easier:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Stout#Works

Get yourself a "Water Pick" and START now,....putting in a grid of sub-irrigated soil,....WELL below what a tiller will be setting for "plow sole".
Once you're able to move around a bit down there,...in some of your first semi dried up holes,....pull samples, and test to see what's needed DOWN THERE,....to raise or lower PH,...water pick in a denser and denser pattern, and set up to go for initial DEEP tillage, with a single point ripper, if possible.....a SHOVEL, if that's what it has to be.
Roto tillers have their place,...but are NOT the way to get a good plot started, or reawakened....define and understand PLOW SOLE,....something that tillers EXCELL at creating, in anything but deep loam.

GTC

4 tine fork, late March when the soil is moist but not wet and not yet dried by the sun.

Quite a few around here have taken to leaving most of the sod for tomatoes and pepper plants.
Just drop your walk behind tiller strait down then move ahead 2 feet and lower it down again.
Space the rows of little square tilled spots about 30 inches apart.
Plant two to four plants in each little square and set your cages.

Why weed or mulch all the empty space in a garden when you can push mower everything in between the plants?

It takes more space than regular rows for the same number of plants but significantly reduces maintenance time and gives you plenty of room to walk while watering spraying pruning and picking.
And you never have to walk in mud.