Turning Sod Into Garden Soil

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Engine Power

As my garden got bigger, 1 thought I'd very, very quickly outgrow my spade for the lion's share of the yearly tilling. My first attempt at harnessing a powered tiller to solve that problem remains the stuff of family lore.

It was June 1, two years after that first garden, and it was our intention to raise as much of our own food as possible. No other source was assured. I left Barbara one morning and refused to come back without a rented tiller. Unloading it a few hours later, I jumped it to life and prepared myself to turn sod into beautiful garden soil in record time. And then I descended into hell. If you have never tried to break sod with a fronttined tiller, it will be hard for me to describe fully the task at hand, but I'll try. A front-end tiller has tines that turn in such a way as to pull the tiller forward. If the tiller has wheels, they just turn as the tiller moves. Perfectly simple.

A MARKET GARDENTending an acre for profitis easier than you imagine.

I positioned the beast carefully where I wanted to start, on the northwest corner of the would-be garden. I lowered the tines to the ground and suddenly found myself at the southwest corner of the would-be garden. I must have looked like a water skier, and felt as if my arms had been yanked out of their sockets. Finally getting it under control, I wheeled it back to my starting place. I tried again only this time I braced myself so I could hold the tines in one place while they did their job of digging into the sod. It worked, but took a while to beat its way deep enough to call the soil sufficiently tilled.

When each small patch was chewed up, I eased forward enough to let the tines pull the tiller out of the hole and up onto the top where I held it again. I toiled all afternoon like this, muscles straining to hold the tiller in place while the tiller vibrated my entire body. I stopped only to put gas in the machine and to eat. I bounced along, more bounce than along, until dark. I set the alarm for daybreak with plans for another five hours of tilling before I had to return the machine, and dropped into a deep sleep.

There is a tremendous luxury to a good power tiller, but I still tend my acre of market garden largely by hand.

When the alarm went off, I found that I couldn't move. Barbara had to reach across me to turn the alarm's ringer off. She also had to load the tiller on the truck, and she also had to do just about everything else for me that day. I ached everywhere. I had tilled about 400 square feet.

I could have done as good a job with a lot less violence to my body with a spade. Without the pressure of having to return the tiller, I could have paced myself. It might even have been enjoyable if I had alternated preparing the soil with planting. Gardening isn't a race, but I turned it into one—and paid the price.

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