Troy-Bilt 15009 - Manual (Page 33)

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.
Tilling 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
permits 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
valuable benefits when you terrace garden,
which is discussed next).
Photo 4-18: Tilling up a slope.
Gardening vertically does not involve much of
a soil erosion problem, as long as you put in
enough
organic material 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 vertically 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 wheels 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, overlap 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 tilling across the slope is to create ter­
races for your garden.
Terraces should be about two to three 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 slope and work down. In three or four
passes, your tiller can carve out a flat and wide
enough terrace for planting, as shown in Sketch
4-19. Each succeeding lower terrace is started
by walking below the terrace you’re preparing.
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.
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