Tilling Across Slopes; Satisfying Tilling Results - Troy-Bilt Horse Owner's Manual

(Photo 5/15) Tilling Across a Slope-Making
terraces across a slope won't leave you room to .
cultivate with your tiller when crops are grown.
(Photo 5/13) Vertical Tilling on Siope- Tilling
uphill on a slope with row markers staked out.
It saves time and effort and builds up your soil
by power composting and cultivation.
(Photo 5/14) Vertical Tilling on Siope- Tilling
downhill and burying sod in one easy step.
are likely to cause erosion and gullies on a
slope.
Tilling uphill and downhill will enable you to
cultivate between crop rows with your tiller
rather than hand cultivation likely to be re-
quired if you terrace across a slope.
Terraces should be formed by tilling a swath
three to four feet
wide.~
width on a slope
will mean that there will not be enough room
to use the tiller for cultivating. You'll be able
to prepare a seedbed for two rows of plants
with the tiller and till under crop residues, but
you'll have to cultivate by hand by walking
along the inner edge of the terrace below.
. Although your tiller could form a terrace five
In three or four passes, the Troy-Bilt Roto
Tiller-Power Com poster can carve out a flat
and wide enough terrace for planting. Start
to terrace on the top of the slope and work
down. Each succeeding lower terrace is started
by walking on the edge of the terrace previous-
ly prepared uphill of it. Make sure that you
don't till the last 6 to 8 inches of the outer edge
of the terrace. The tiller will cover this edge up
with soil, but don't till the edge. Keeping the
soil underneath the edge unbroken will prevent
terraces from breaking apart and washing
downhill.
Being able to till
vertic~lIy
up and down the
slope will also permit you to constantly and
continuously improve the soil's water absorp-
tion and drainage from season-to-season, by
tilling under weeds, mulches, residues and
green manure cover crops as often as is pos-
sible. The more organic material you are able
to till into a slope, the more likely you are to
be able to prevent hard packed soil conditions (Photo 5/12) Satisfying Tilling Results.
from occurring. This, of course, will eventually
virtually eliminate one source of erosion (water
runoff from packed soil).
TILLING ACROSS SLOPES
Whenever a slope is extremely steep or too
short for vertical tilling, you may decide that
you simply must till across the slope laterally..
First make sure that the slope is not too steep
to till safely at all. The best way to achieve good
results tilling across the slope is to create ter-
races for your garden. See Photo 5/15.
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