Tilling the Garden

Each autumn at The Homestead, we like to rake up all the leaves from the yard and till them into the garden.  Last year, I turned the garden by hand, with a spade.  I worked at it little by little, and it took a couple of weeks.  This year, I didn't have the time to turn it myself.  For one thing, we had so much windy weather that the leaves kept blowing out of the garden and into the yard.  I was tired of raking.  But, I also had to travel for work, and wasn't going to be around.  So, I went and rented a rototiller from Home Depot.

This is a yearly issue.  How are we going to get the garden tilled?  For a couple of years we had our friend Mr. Free from Paragonah come over with his tractor.  He did a good job, but you need some space in the yard for him to turn around.  We have been planting trees and expanding the garden, so there is less and less space for a tractor.  Plus, despite his name, he doesn't work for nothing, so his cost needs to be compared to other costs.  My father-in-law has offered to kick in some cash to help us buy our own rototiller, but I'm loath to do it.  For one thing, the good ones start at five or six hundred dollars, but what I really dislike is needing to store it.  I mean, we only till the garden once or (at most) twice a year.  So, we'd need to have a tiller in the shed for 363 days of non-use every year.  Instead of doing that, I'd prefer to continue using a spade.  Unfortunately, with 150 square feet of garden, the spade takes more than one hour of labor, which was about all I had this year.

In any case, Home Depot rented me a Honda tiller for $52 for four hours.  I went over the garden about four times in one hour, sprayed the tiller clean with a hose, and returned it for them to keep in the store for me until next year.  I think it is a pretty good deal.  The price is comparable to what Mr. Free would charge, the garden looks great, and I don't have to trip over a rototiller in the shed all winter.