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Before you do any tilling
with
your
tiller,
please
find
out
if
there
are
any
cables,
electric
lines or
gas
lines that might
have been installed
under-
ground
by a local
utility
company
or
by a
previ-
ous owner of your
property.
If
there
are
any lines,
avoid tilling
near
them.
This is
an
IMPORTANT
SAFETY PRECAUTION
that
should
be investi-
gated
fully until
you
know
that
you're
tilling
in a
safe
area.
A
WARNING
BEFORE TILLING, CONTACT YOUR
TELEPHONE OR UTILITY COMPANY IF
UNDERGROUND EQUIPMENT
OR LINES
ARE USED IN YOUR
AREA.
Their
repre-
sentative will
be glad to
answer your ques-
tions and
tell you if any of
their equipment
or lines
are buried
underground on your
property.
Tilli
ng Up and Down Slopes
If
you
must garden
on
a
moderate
slope,
then
the
best
way to do so is by
planting
rows up and
down the
slope.
Tilling vertically in this manner
perm
its
you to use the entire area for
your
seedbed as well as to
provide
enough room
be-
tween rows so that you can
cultivate
between
them during the
growing
season (you lose these
val
uabl e ben
efits
when you
terrace
garde
n,
which
is
discussed
next).
Photo
4-
18:
Tilling up
a
slope.
Gardening
vertically does
not
involve
much of
a soil
eros
ion problem
,
as long
as you put in
en
o ugh
orga nic materia l
to improve the
moisture-holding ability of your
soil,
and
if you
avoid leaving
footprints and wheel
marks. Soil
in
this
condition is loose
enough
to
prevent
pack-
ing,
and is held together well enough by
those
organic materials so that it
readily
absorbs
water.
Whenever you
are
tilling
verticaliy
on the
slightest slope,
try to make
your
first pass
uphill.
Your
tiller digs
in
much
more
deeply going uphill
than it does
downhill.
The
powered wheel
s
of
your tiller pull
the machine up the
hill
to do your
digging and also
hold
the
tiller
back while
you
go
downhill
to
prevent
the tiller from
going too
fast.
In soft
soil
or
weeds,
you may
have to
lift
the
handlebars
up
slightly as
you go
uphill. When
going back down the
slope ,
over
lap your
first
pass
by about half
the
width
of
the tiller.
Tilling
Across
Slopes
with
Terraces
Whenever a
slope
is too steep or too short for
vertical
tilling,
it may be
necessary
to till across
the slope
laterally.
The
best way to
achieve
good
results tilli
ng across
the slope
is to
create ter-
races
for
your
garden.
Terraces
shou
ld
be about two to
th
ree
feet
wide.
This means
you'll
be able to
plant one or
two rows
of plants and
till
under crop residues
and cover
crops,
but
there may not
be
enough
room
for
cultivating with
your
tiller.
(If
you make
terraces
too
wide, you would
be digging as much
as a foot into the
uphill
side
of the terrace and
you
would
end up trying to
grow vegetables
in
the
poor
subsoil
there.)
First,
make sure
that
the
slope
is
not
too steep
to till
safely.
Then start to terrace on the top of
the s
lope
and work down
.
In
three or
f
ou r
passes,
your tiller
can carve out a flat and wide
enough terrace for
planting,
as
shown
in
Sketch
4-19.
Each
succeed ing
lower terrace is
started
by
walking
below the
terrace you're
preparing.
~
O~.
e~.
12" UNTILLED
O~.
REPEAT
Sketch
4-19:
Creating
a
terrace in just
three
tilling
passes.
Make
sure
that
you
don't till the
last 12"
or
more
of
the downhill outside
edge
of each
ter-
race-See
Photo
4-20.
Keeping
the soil
unbro-
ken
beneath
the
outside
edge
will help
to
pre-
vent terraces from
breaking
apart and
washing
downhill
.
It also
gives
you a walking path
be-
tween the
terraces.
31
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