Kitchen Garden Forum

What a wonderful Spring day it is here today.....i've just cut the grass over the allotments, so it won't be long before we can get going.

I know what the weather will be like tomorrow, now i have said that... .....

Good to see you have that spring in your step again OH.

Chill wind over here in Ireland but still dry and a grand day for those who are out on Saint Patrick's Day..ie most of the country as the parades march. Up here I enjoy the utter peace and quiet. Washing dry which is a great thing. The air is strong and sweet.

As we all know, everyone seems to be trying to rip us off in one way or another these days. So it gave me a real lift today, when i took the wheel from my rotovator to have a puncture mended and when it was done the bloke said there was no charge...

I did give him a drink and will be recommending to others.

A rotavator with a pneumatic tyre, that has to be one chunky beast.

I believe OH are mostly having one of theses, arr!

I have indeed, but mine has car wheels and tyres on it....doesn't grip quite as well, but it does help to spread the weight of the beast....

I have a rotavator, although nothing quite like that.

I originally bought mine back in 1990 when we first had a plot on the current site.
That is the plot I have mentioned before that we gave up because of how stoney and difficult the soil was to work.

One thing about rotavator's I have never followed the logic of is that the tines turn the soil over then you end up walking through the turned soil.

On the subject of rotavator / tillers.

I watched a neighbouring plot holder the other day, he unloaded his well known make of tiller (we often receive adverts for it) out of his van, started it and attempted to plough through his plot which was nothing but course grass that had grown since the end of last season.
The tiller just bounced up and down, not a hope of tilling any soil.

Having watched him go through this ritual in the past I can almost predict what he will do next. Out will come the flame burner to scorch the entire surface. The tiller part of the ritual will then be performed again and eventually he will end up with a fork over the area, after which the tiller will finally work on the top 4 > 6 inches or so.

One of my fellow plotters went and got our communal tiller out of the lock up yesterday only to find it was seized solid it never fails to amaze me how people have no regard for things that they do not own

Unfortunately we had all the allotment community equipment stolen last year. Someone targeted the sheds they were kept in.

I do all my digging by hand 1) it's good for the soul 2) you get to know your soil 3) allotment is full of bine weed and we all know what a rotivater does to that!

All the Howard range allowed you to set the handles to an angle either side and as the wheels are driven you could walk on untilled ground. With my 350 I alway did a final pass like that, bit of a fiddle on each turn, stop & set straight, turn using reverse gear, set to opposite angle, rotovate.

That is the advantage of having a grown up rotavator. Mine does not have drive gears to go forward let alone reverse. Relies on the tines pulling it through the soil along with the effort of me behind shoving it.

Pawty, I manually dig my plot first then rotavate to bring to fine tilth. The exception to that is the intended brassica bed for the coming season which I prefer to keep as firm ground.

Bind weed and couch grass root then gets removed during manual stage, although I have found that neither root likes constant movement of soil.

We had a Merry Tiller for many years but found that, as the soil turned was always the same depth, it did produce a 'pan' below the tilled soil, so we went back to hand digging which I prefer in any case.

Still rather wintry here, with the day temperatures barely reaching double figures and the NE wind is certainly keeping things back. It's good to hear the birds tuning up, though.

I have always tried to rpughly turn everything with a spade prior to using machinery as I'm on clay.

This is the first year since i have had allotments, that i haven't got around to digging any of it at all, before rotovating it. Luckily, Big Bertha will break up undug soil quite easily, but i did miss not having the time to dig.