Kitchen Garden Forum

Oh, you lucky, lucky people with rain yesterday and probably still now. We did not have a drop and barely any rain since mid-March. It's at these times when I am glad we no longer have the allotment. At least at home the distance between the tap and the vegetable beds is short and on even ground.

last couple of days i have been dismantling a raised strawberry bed riddled with vine weevil, i have sifted all the soil and compost they were in and put the little white grubs to one side, done this about 4 times now and it is very satisfying seeing the robin tits and blackbirds queing up for their free meal.

Been weighing up the cost of re-engining my Merry Tiller versus buying a cheap rotovator.
The engine drinks all the oil in about half an hour operating.
Haven't used it this year for fear of catastrophic failure.
My RTT3 is brilliant for tackling broken ground, powered wheels with hooded rotors, but this type isn't good on solid ground - unless a very heavy machine like a Howard GEM - as the rotors try to drive it faster than the wheels.

So today a secondary school classmate offers his Honda for sale on Facebook!

I now own a Honda FG205 for about the cost of an engine delivered in a crate, one bunny!

Thar looks a good timesaver. Should make life a lot easier and hopefully a friend won,t sell you something duff.

I have something similar, but my tines look a lot feebler than that, and one of them keeps bending!! I'll photograph it tomorrow...

Will you let us know how you get on with it, please Peter!

It is so very satisfying when need is fulfilled by a timely bargain.
Peter, you now have a different problem, what to do with the older machine!

oldherbaceous wrote:Will you let us know how you get on with it, please Peter!

Did an extensive test drive this morning.
Previously rotovated ground.
Excellent, breaks the golf ball sizes nuggets down a treat. Goes deep as well.
Roughly dug ground.
Again excellent, takes a number of passes, but breaks the brick to half-brick lumps down to a rakeable tilth wth some remaining lumps. I suspect a couple more passes would fix things.
This was to a neighbour's benefit, she was very pleased.
Solid undug ground.
Not so good, it doesn't have the weight and patience of the Merry Tiller. Wants to scoot off rather than dig down. It is only about 25kg and I can carry it with one hand easily with the handlebars folded over the top. It did Scrabble a fine inch or two of tilth on the top.

Other comments.
Frugal with fuel.
Easy to move and handle
Quiet, it's only 50cc 4-stroke.
Has a kill switch on the left handle.
And the combined throttle and clutch on the right handle has an interlock switch. Bit finger AND thumb. Press a flap left with the middle of your fingers before pulling the bigger part up to the handle.
It is effectively go or no-go, no throttle variations.

Overall I'm pleased with it.

That all sounds very promising, Peter...

Stephen wrote:It is so very satisfying when need is fulfilled by a timely bargain.
Peter, you now have a different problem, what to do with the older machine!

Anyone interested in a Merry Tiller in reasonable condition apart from the engine, which drinks oil by the pint, none left after half an hour's use.
Comes with, standard push it transport wheels, four rotors, wheels that fit instead of the rotors so you can motor to the plot and back, also an earthing up / trenching snowplough type thingy that goes in the depth skid mounting.
All reasonable offers considered, collection from near Stansted Airport.

Did somebody mention rain the other day or am I dreaming?

My plots the same geoff

I've cut the grass today, but main gardening task at the moment is watering, at least things are growing, tatties just peeping through, so I've pulled more soil on them as there may be another frost tonight. Peas are also appearing outside along with some carrots and radishes. In the greenhouse there's peas, carrots, lettuce and radishes all growing in the border soil. Mara des bois strawberries are flowering like mad with this sunshine. In the conservatory the tenders are growing like triffids, tommies, sweet peppers, chillies and cukes and squash all growing well.

We got what I considered quite a reasonable amount of rain but it just ran down the cracks & the wee plants in currently would not get any benefit as their roots are shallower than the cracks! Now a couple of sunny days later the cracks are even wider so I will be doing my best to break it up a bit before it dries & gets too hard to break up!

Heard the Cuckoo today...so very pleased...