We got the big garden turned yesterday. It’s been so long since we fooled with Pap’s big garden that we are sort of out of practice.
Originally we thought the tiller on the new tractor would be all we needed, but once The Deer Hunter started working on the garden he quickly realized it would have to be turned or cut before we could plant in it.
All the years of grass and trees growing on the garden really compacted the soil.
When Pap made a garden in the area he only used small tillers to turn the soil each year. That was enough since it stayed fairly loose from the previous year’s garden growing. Every once in a great while he’d have someone come with a tractor and turn it over really good during early spring.
The Deer Hunter used a turning plow to loosen up the soil and now he can go back over it with the tiller to break up the clumps. We may still use a small tiller here and there, but having the tractor has saved us a lot of time and work.
Last night’s video: A People and Their Quilts 13.
Tipper
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You can buy an old plow very cheaply. We have one. People who farm for a living no longer use plows for their crops, so used plows that farmers used to need can be bought anywhere. Be sure the plow fits with the tractor, though. There are different ways to attach some of them. And of course, get the right size. My husband borrowed one of those tillers you are using behind the tractor and I told him never again; I can do that much with my old garden tiller.
Imagine Granny enjoys watching this project. That’s a lot of corn. Can’t wait to see it growing.
I bet Granny loves watching you work in that space!
I can smell the fresh turned rich dark soil and feel the softness beneath my feet after it’s been tilled to that point. I did this many times when my grandpa was farming, so many years ago. I was just a little girl. Daddy only had small, but fruitful gardens. That too had the same effect on me. Enjoy watching Mr. Matt and you working and building you new garden place. The epitome of home gardeners working together to feed and supply a beautiful larder for you and the family. Love and prayers to all the family and coming baby boys. Really miss seeing Miss Louzine. My heartfelt regards to her. Jennifer
Tipper,
This plot wil make a nice corn and potato garden with flowers here and there!!
How is Granny doing?
It’s getting pretty close for that precious little baby boy to arrive!! I bet Grandma Tipper can’t wait with excitement! Blessings to all of you. Hilary H.❤️
Hilary-Granny is doing good 🙂 Thank you!
…my mom was the primary gardner as I was growing up since my dad often worked out of town. I remember mom hiring some one to come in with a team of horses and plow her garden spot.
I love to see a freshly tilled field. So pretty!
Wonderful! There is much truth in the old saying, “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”
Would planting a Winter cover crop help establish and maintain your garden’s health? https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/winter-annual-cover-crops .
As my Spring gift to you, here are a bunch of gardening quotes: https://www.treehugger.com/inspirational-gardening-quotes-4868813.
Happy gardening!
Lesley-thank you!
We watch you every single day and always look new videos of you all. My husband, Del and I were so excited to see the beautiful tractor. He knew exactly what it was due to the color!
Thank you so much for your videos and I am certainly enjoying your cookbook.
So excited for these babies to come!
God bless your whole family!
My husband was able to get a tractor a few years ago–a John Deere–middle sized I guess. He loves the tractor & it gets used a lot around here. He is a major handy man and has fabricated several attachments to use with it. I grew up a country girl and remember Daddy plowing the garden & fields with Grandpa’s mules. I knew there was a breaking plow but didn’t realize a garden needed a deep turn sometimes. Anyway, my husband–a city boy–started talking about “turning” the garden this year. I’m guessing a breaking plow and a turning plow is the same thing. Looking back, I think my childhood gardens may have been “turned” every year.
Looks like life is good in “Wilson Holler”; am sure turning Pap’s garden spot is an emotional high, Tipper. So many great associated memories resurfaced. And, fresh turned ground sure has a fantastic aroma; nothing like it and fresh mowed hay. All is looking good, Tipper – continued prayers for Granny and the expectant moms! Our best to all …….
Matt & Tipper – I am excited with you and most happy for you as you expand your growing area in this new space and look forward with you in seeing all you will now be able to grow…especially CORN!
That sure is a big garden area. It’s gonna be fun to follow along with ya’lls progress. I bet Matt was enjoying working on his new tractor!1
I’m so excited for you. I’m also hoping to see a video of this exciting first step to restoring Pap’s garden.
Can’t wait for more QBota! Go Big Orange!
Can’t help but wonder, how bad are the roots? They can really reach out a looong way from the tree line. Another good reason to have a tractor this year. Glad for Matt that he has what he needs to re-make a “new-old ground” but not in the old timely way. I bet he has a lot of satisfaction to have brought it so far along.
How exciting!! The picture makes it all so real now. I know Matt is loving the new tractor. You can tell he knows exactly what he is doing and that’s going to be one fine garden. Pap would be so proud. Have a wonderful day everyone!!
I didn’t mention this in my reply to L, but if you look at how far the tractor is leaning to the right you can get an idea of how deep Matt is plowing. The subsoiler I mentioned earlier sometimes referred to as a ripper is a set of narrow plows mounted to shanks on a metal frame spaced maybe 12 to 18 inches apart. The number of shanks, spacing and the weight of the frame depends on the hp/size of the tractor. These plows will get on down and scratch the heads of people in China, always good idea to have your foot close to the clutch pedal and driving slow when subsoiling in case of hanging a large rock or root. The plows are suppose to trip if you hang something but they don’t always do this. Just as papaw said this breaks up the subsoil/clay. Some words of wisdom learned from older farmers. If you keep turning a field with a turnplow in the most common direction Matt is plowing, judging by the tractor tracks I see in left corner of picture he is coming back down left side of field turning the the dirt to the right toward the edge of the field but in both directions the dirt is being turned to the right. Eventually the dirt from the middle of field will be turned to the edges of the field, every now and the then start in middle of the field and turn right instead of left and come back down right beside of the fur you just plowed turning the dirt back toward the middle of the field instead of turning it toward the edge of field. This will be aggravating to start with because of having to make tight turns that will require backing up but as you plow more the turns will get wider and soon will be no problem. You can find videos of farmers doing this on you tube and it will show what I am trying to say.
First thing that came to mind when I saw that pic was the sweet smell of freshly turned soil. What a pleasant aroma, now just a pleasant memory.
So happy that Matt’s got the right tools to work with. From what I’ve seen on YouTube, he’s a hard worker and tries to please you in your new venture!
Everyone have a great Saturday!
How exciting!!! Once Deer Hunter has it all turned how he likes it, then the planting of corn is on. I’m so happy for y’all, but probably not as excited and happy as you are. Blessings for a great growing season and a bountiful harvest!
I know you guys are so excited for your big corn patch—and your new tractor—what a beautiful garden it will be. Hubby got our small garden tilled up a couple times in the last few days—and with the help of two little girls, we planted two rows of onions yesterday. I planted tomato seeds in small pots. I have never started tomatoes from seeds, so it will be an experiment for me. I planted Roma tomatoes because they are great for sauce. And I planted Cherokee Purple because we have never tasted them and you guys have influenced us. Lol. Of course we will buy other tomato plant varieties we love. I just wanted to try my hand at growing from seed—stay tuned.
Granny will be so happy to see the big garden back in business. Back in the early days when my parents raised a garden, tilling was not a word in their vocabulary. Plowing meant attaching a walk-behind tool to a horse and breaking up the ground. A metal bed spring was attached to the horse to ‘drag’ the newly plowed garden. In later years, Daddy got a big rototiller that was nearly as big as a tractor. My grandson has that tiller now that I have downsized my garden and the size of tiller I use.
I see y’all have that clay soil like we do. I don’t know how my ancestors were able to do their big gardens with only a broad fork and a pick mattock. I guess I’m not as strong as my grands. My folks usually had gardens that were 100 feet by 50 feet that would take up the entire back side of the house. Every year in September they would throw in rye seed after pulling out the old plants. The rye would sprout and come redbud winter they’d dig it all under with that heavy pick mattock and broadfork. After the blackberry winter they’d start planting the veg.
It would be nice to plant a fruit tree for each new grandson . . . and then one as a memory tree for Miss Cindy. I have planted semi-dwarf sizes with much success. They last a long time with proper upkeep and produce enough for a family and then some . . .
So happy to see that Matt got himself a tractor! You all are so productive and a tractor will do him good! Happy planting
That’s a huge “garden.” I hope you have plans for a few dwarf fruit trees . . . Always fun in a garden along with all the veggies.
When we moved to our present home in 2015, we wanted to have a garden and first tried to rototill a piece of land behind our house. It wouldn’t cut through the compacted dirt and grass, so we had a neighbor plow it with his big tractor. The soil was terrible. We had two loads of dirt delivered and put on top and then planted seeds and vegetable plants. The house was new, and the land had been a pasture. We still have to build up the soil every year with fertilizer. It’s a lot of work and now that my husband and I are 75 we have cut back on planting. No one helps us and the garden has never done that well. We are unable to grow corn because of the garden facing the north and east. We gave up after a couple of tries. Good luck with your new garden. I hope it goes well.
Exciting! I can just see the area full of corn and other yummy food
Exciting times for your garden!!!
I used to have a garden about 50′ wide and 300’long and a tractor is the way to go. I had an old Ford.
I agree with what Rita said, “what joy”! Reading the title and seeing the picture of him using the tractor made me smile with happiness for y’all. Big day! Such an exciting day for your family! Looked like a gorgeous day.
What a wonderful way to honor your parents by restoring their garden(s) and producing what they taught you to produce. All these harvests will serve your entire family for years to come. It’s truly a blessing to witness this rebirth, and it must be a joy for Granny as well. God bless you, Matt, Katie, Corey, and beautiful Granny. I’m so looking forward to watching this garden come back to life and again providing God’s bounty to this family.
I’d love to have a tractor like the one Deer Hunter used on Pap’s lovely, airy flat garden plot! I’d plow probably everything I could that wasn’t on a big hill and then I’d probably plow again just for the thrill of it! There’s something quite powerful and moving about a tractor and the driver of said plow. It’s like he’s unstoppable
stop til the job is completed! I think a tractor is “sexy” like the song says. Manual labor is very much a turn on to me! If I still had those inclinations that is. Sweat beads glistening on a hot golden suntanned man bodacious body-what’s not to look at and love about God’s handiest work as far as I can tell? Lol I mean what’s not to fully take in the eyes about a hard working man (or woman if you’re a feller) when you’re making improvements and even better when those improvements are all about NATURAL GARDEN FOOD!!! A full pantry is a real HOT thing nowadays…. Lol
I’ve always said one can look without lusting. Even at an advanced age I’m sticking with that, Sadie.
I wouldn’t know how to use a plow like that. If I couldn’t flip the moldboard and point at the end of the row to go back, I wouldn’t know what to do next. Have you ever seen a hillside turner in operation?
Papaw-I haven’t but would like to see it 🙂
Papaw, tell me how terraces were made in bygone days? Somehow I missed seeing that being done. I’m guessing a hillside turner was the tool of choice,
Gene, we made terraces with the round disc tiller I mentioned in another comment. Plow up one side come back down the other side keep doing this over and over on the same plowed dirt, rolling the dirt up higher and higher each time. There is a trick to this I can’t describe with words.
For you and Sadie concerning lust, it is only natural to look one time, it is the second or third look that causes the trouble. I can’t help myself but sometimes I see a “sinful lady” one look does not do them justice!
Papaw I wrote in another comment that has not been posted yet about starting in the middle of the field and coming back down beside opposite side of the first furrow rolling the dirt back toward the middle of field and plowing out to the edge if you are not using a flip plow. I am trying to say plow from the middle to the edge instead of plowing from edge to middle of the field. I have saw videos of these flip moldboard plows being used on you tube. In my area, it was more common to use large round disc 3 up to 8 disc tillers instead of moldboard or turnplows in the past days, now the farmers most often use large, heavy offset disc harrows. Both the moldboard and disc tillers I refer to are pull behind plows (not three point hitch) with two front wheels and a heavy weight steel tailwheel with a tongue to hitch to the drawbar. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same basic plow frame were used for both types of plows.
I am sorry for so many comments today, but as I said the other day tractors are dear to my heart, 5 gallons of fuel and a tractor do more for me when I am worried or depressed that any doctor or therapist can. Messing with a tractor is one of the few things I still enjoy and helps to take my mind off missing my wife for a short period of time.
Randy, you are talking about flatland plowing. Mountain gardens don’t have flat ground. The government allowed the TVA to force people off the only flat land there was, along the rivers, so that it could cover or threaten to cover it with dam water.
The kind of plows you are talking about are pulled by tractor or teams of draft animals. Those mountain gardens of my childhood were planted in patches of a half acre or less, often much less. Tractors with gang plows are not economically feasible. Teams of animals don’t work well either. On steep ground the animals are not pulling side by side but one above the other going one way and the other way on the way back.
A single animal and hillside turning plow works best where I came from (and where I will soon be returning.)
If I am not badly mistaken the whole of the property where Matt and Tipper’s garden is located is about .92 acres and has a house and outbuilding on it. I would guess that their garden will occupy about half of that. That makes it a “big garden” compared to others nearby but a mere footprint for those who are blessed with more level ground.
Wow! I’m sure Matt really enjoyed turning that soil!
We had a Bowens tractor when I was a girl. It mowed our lawn and tilled our garden which was about the size of your big garden.
My sisters still live in our old homestead and still put out a garden although they don’t do the whole garden anymore.
You can still tell where the entire garden was though.
Hope you have a video on this coming out!
That’s going to make one big corn patch!!!
Corn produces so much better in a big patch. Have you noticed that? They are going to have corn, and more corn!
God has truly blessed ya’ll and it is a blessing to watch ya’ll get things planted. I am so very happy for your family. I know you have to be ecstatic right now. Babies coming, garden being used again, and Granny still here to see it all happening too. I’m sure she is pleased to see it growing again too.
God bless!
WHAT JOY! Restoring your Pap’s garden is especially special! Having the right tools is such a blessing! May it produce many bountiful harvests in the years to come for the next generations!
That is such great news! You are making progress. I love your quilt history reading! That is an interesting read! There are so many beautiful quilts. I watched deer Hunter and Katie fix a great supper last evening and her walk the next day. Katie is going to be such a good Mommy! May God bless her with a safe delivery❤ I’m praying for too, and Granny❤ ! God bless you and yours❤❤
What is the difference between tilling and turning? I always thought they meant the same thing.
The meaning of the words can be the same, plowing can also be used in place of these words. Look at the picture real close and you can see that the turnplow Matt is using is turning the dirt over to the right side leaving a furrow, notice the right side tires sitting down lower than the left side, the right side tires are in the furrow left from the previous pass. The tiller or rototiller is nothing more than a large front or back tine garden tiller that is powered by the pto of the tractor. It is not for turning over or breaking up hard dirt. Matt will go back and plow over this again with the rototiller and the dirt will look like powder. Think of a rotor tiller grinding up the dirt similar to a meat grinder grinding up chunks of meat into hamburger.
Tilling only stirs up the top 4 or 5 inches of topsoil. A turning plow reaches down into the subsoil and loosens it up. It brings up nutrients that ordinarily the plant’s roots cannot readily reach. It also introduces air down deep so that beneficial flora and fauna down there can flourish.
I have an older very heavy 6 foot wide rototiller made by Ferguson that has new tines. It does a real fine job of tilling the ground. I have learned that it is best to plow land that has not been worked in awhile with some other plow such as a turn plow or subsoiler/scaffier before plowing with the tiller. It looked liked Matt was doing a real fine job with the turn plow sometimes called a bottom plow. I bet he was smiling like a briar eating mule enjoying his new toy/tractor!