Tales From The Tomerosa: Rapturous Roto-tilling

A Sure Sign Of Spring!

Last year I took a garden sabbatical. I let my garden plot lie fallow, and I am reasonably sure that my little comestible producing patch enjoyed it's break as much as I did. All things tend to need a season of rest occasionally. There are lots of thoughts in the human Ideaverse regarding whether to till or not to till, and to be honest, I am fine with whatever method works the best for each person. Some years I rototill some of my land before I sow seed, other years I don't turn the soil and hang out in the permaculture/no-till side of the gardening spectrum. My stewardship of the land that I am blessed to care for is definitely approached with an experimental-tinged mindset; I am not going to get hung up on one method of production, I am going to try them all!

That said, for years I only had a shovel, a wheelbarrow, and my two hands for soil cultivation. I then graduated to a small Mantis knock off rototiller. Cultivating a 1/2 an acre with a tiny tiller is a magnificent full body workout. I'm also pretty sure that tilling that much land with that small of a machine is a cure for insomnia as well, but I haven't done a controlled study on that hypothesis, so don't quote me! My soil cultivation situation changed forever when my Dad called me one day from Rocky Ford, Colorado:

"Sis, do you think you would use a 5 foot PTO driven rototiller on the back of your tractor?" Dad queried.

He already knew the answer, he was just toying with my un-tilled, soil-clad emotions.

"Of course I would! Did you find one?" I gushed with what I hope was appropriate "please get the rototiller" enthusiasm. Dad had been hinting around for a few weeks about getting a tiller for the back of my 42 horse John Deere tractor.

"I think I found us one." was his reply.

Dad happened to be working a job in Colorado when the not-so great Cantaloupe Listeria outbreak occurred. It really did a number on the local melon farmers, and Dad was able to pick up a beautiful tractor mounted rototiller implement for a fraction of what it would have cost us here in the Pacific Northwest.

The day he drove down the driveway with what I fondly refer to as the Roto-Ron in the back of his Chevy pickup is still celebrated like a holiday at our house, for now, instead of being beat to almost death rototilling my huge garden plot, I now snap pictures of my husband leisurely tilling the soil. No longer do I have to clean out tiller tines or rake the beds for a good solid week to remove all of the weed and grass roots from my garden plot. Instead I stand smiling as I inhale the sweet soil-scent of tilling and time management victory.

Yesterday, as I stood on the side of the garden plot and watched as my husband took twenty whole minutes to do what used to take us at least a week; I felt this huge sense of gratitude and all out joy! The time spent over the years in the tilling trenches was good for me, as I will carry more than a bit of gratitude in my feelings-belt for the rest of my days. I still do a ton of hard, laborious work, but boy does it feel good when you can procure something that makes things just a bit easier!

And as always, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's soil-encrusted iPhone.