Tilling the garden

Brendon-KS · Mar 30, 2018

Here's a picture of my 11 year old son tilling the garden with an Ariens S-16H. He's the fourth generation to operate this tractor although it did sort of skip past my Dad. My grandfather purchased it new in 1978 with this tiller, a mower deck, and snow blade and used it around the house on their northwest Ohio farm. When he passed away about 15 years ago I bought it from my grandma and brought it here to Kansas. It spent a few years at my sister's place in Illinois and recently came back here when they no longer had a need for it.

Garden tractors were made tough back then - I'd be surprised if many built today will still be going strong 40 years from now. This one is essentially all original and as far as I know it's had only one rebuild of the Kohler K341 engine (just a few years ago) and nothing ever being done to the Sundstrand hydro.

gab · Mar 31, 2018

He's doing a nice job. Did he grind it up that nice in one pass? My old 1968 Wheel Horse has been retired to tiller duty for about fifteen years, the 14 horse Kohler runs strong, don't use any oil, but sounds pretty loose. When it dies I'm done gardening, growing kind of tired of it anyway.

gtractorfan · Mar 31, 2018

Wow that's impressive! Looks like the Ariens was well cared for. And what a huge garden, looks like you could feed an army. Thanks for sharing this with us.

Brendon-KS · Mar 31, 2018

To be fair I did most of it - he just got involved towards the end. The garden is about 100 ft square but much of it is devoted to "non-food" stuff. My wife and her sister get really into the fall decorating so we grow a lot of pumpkins of various sizes and colors as well as Indian corn. I also enjoy growing melons and they use a lot of space as well.

Brendon-KS · Mar 31, 2018

I had moldboard plowed and disked it a few times in the fall so it was pretty loose to begin with. However, it was quite cloddy since our winter here was so dry that the freeze/thaw cycles didn't have any moisture to work with and the clods were still hard. A few weeks ago we finally got a good rain and they softened up enough for the tiller to break them down with one pass. The soil moisture was just perfect for tilling which is rarely the case with our gumbo clay.

gtractorfan · Mar 31, 2018

I did something similar one season-- fall plowed an empty corner of the woods, an area similar to a football field or about an acre. The ground was soft and mellow the next spring. I grew vining plants and corn. I could dig up some pictures. Good memories.

jeffcat · Mar 31, 2018

Here in SJ and southeast corner of Pennsylvania we can get get a wonderful magic elixer of soil. Look into if you can get a couple of tractor trailer loads of Mushroom soil. Fantastic stuff. There are several levels of the stuff. You want the organic type. And you can get fresh or aged. Don't get any with hurbesides in it! BIG Truck pulls up and you spread it around with your tractor. Till it in. If the stuff is smoking hot when you get it, leave it alone and let it finish. Cooks all weed seeds and such. Makes the most super duper soil bed you can ever get. Cow manure and horse work well but they are heavyer and the weed seeds pass through. Also very little biomass compaired to Mushroom soil. Soil will look like something from a fairy tail book.

Tilling the garden

Brendon-KS

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gab

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gtractorfan

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Brendon-KS

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Brendon-KS

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gtractorfan

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jeffcat

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