Time Proven Gardening Tips For Troy-Bilt Owners - Troy-Bilt Horse Owner's Manual

Time Proven Gardening Tips for ,TROY-SILT Owners ...
CUltivating with one hand, alongside
the Troy-BiIt, avoids wheel-marks
and footprints, which replant weed
seeds and spoil the fine moisture-
holding "dust mulch" the loosened
soil just created. Troy-Bi/t cultiva-
tion also chops up and tills under
weeds, adding valuable organic
matter.
Tilling under all residues - even
standing cornstalks - destroys the
winter nesting, feeding, and repro-
ducing quarters of many garden in-
sect pests. The sooner after harvest-
ing the better. Tender green matter
not only tills in easier, but provides
that much more good food to the
earthworms and soil life.
Many Troy.-Bilt owners hand-broadcast buckwheat, as
shown in this photo, after harvest of vegetables as a green
manure crop. The quick growth helps choke out weeds
and supplies
a
rick source of organic material when even-
tually tilled in. Rye{}rass is popular as a cover crop to pre-
vent winter erosion and to be tilled in as green manure the
following spring.
Tilling under this nitrogen-fixing crop of soybeans is one
at the fastest ways we know of to improve or rebuild soi/.
This tilled-in green manure will break down into humus, a
sponge-like material which stores and releases moisture
as needed during dry spells, and helps to drain excess
surface water during wet periods. Humus is essential for
breaking up heavy clay soils, and binding overly loose,
sandy ones.
Vegetation you remove from your
• garden as harvested crops should
be replaced with equal or greater
amounts of organic matter to keep ,
soil well aerated and fertile. Fall is
a
perfect time lor tilling under leaves
which will decompose by spring, re-
leasing
a
bounty of important trace
minerals drawn from the subsoil by
tree roots.
Without
a
doubt, earthworms are
a
gardener's best friends. These use-
ful creatures burrow throughout the
soil, aiding drainage with their chan-
nels, and digesting huge amounts of
raw vegetation, turning it into tiny
enough particles of fertilizing nutri-
~nts
that plant root hairs can ab-
sorb.· This high yielding, "power-
composted" Troy-Bilt garden is
iJ.
paradise for earthworms!
For more information, please read pages 65 to 76 inside tltis manual entitled,
"Using Special Troy-Bilt Gardening Methods,"
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