Toiling and tilling

I've been working in the back field. We have about four acres of level land there. I think it has been used for pasture and one previous owner told me he tried to grow corn. We're working towards a large propagation area for vegetables and goat pasture.

The soil is not full of clay. That's to good part. It's pretty sandy, not a lot of organic matter, certainly not any depth to the soil. It is going to take a lot of amendment to make it productive. That's some nicely aged cow manure in a pile on the left. We spread a layer of black plastic to smother that area on the right. We let it cook for about a month under the August sun. It did a pretty good job on the vegetation.


The next step was the scarifying blades on my box blade. I used it to break up any roots. I was also working on an area of pasture that needs remediation after the logging. Partly because it got torn up. But we also have a infestation of evil weed. It's a climbing vine, an alien evasive from Italy called black swallow wart. The pasture is on the perimeter of the field and the logger pulled a few trees out of it. And with his skidder, it didn't seem to take much effort.

This is what the ground looked like when I got done with the scarifying blades. I decided that even after the boxblade, there are too many roots to till. I didn't want to risk my new tiller on the first day.


Those are the tines of the tiller. It did a great job on the soil, breaking up the sod, cutting roots.




Here is the results of my tilling.