Middle busting

That's our new middle buster. Last year, we formed all our beds with shovels and our backs. After both of us ended up in physical therapy for our backs this winter, I was a little worried that we (I) might not be up to it with the expanded garden this year. Physical Therapy is going to cost me $1500 (some day I'll talk about why my "insurance" wouldn't cover it), so it didn't seem outlandish to spend $400 on a plow to do the digging for us.

We went with a middle buster from Lowery Manufacturing of Alabama. A third of it was the shipping, it came by motor freight. I went with this one because I liked the design and I thought it would be versatile. It's made of 1/4" wall 2-1/2 inch square tubing and is very strong feeling. It's not as wide as I would like, but I think I could have extensions welded on if I needed to.



The idea is to dig trenches that throw the dirt up and onto the bed between. It gives us deeper tilled soil to work with, raises the planting surface up relative to the walking path and makes tilling in the fall go better. We finished the entire garden in less than three hours as apposed to digging it by hand over a week or more. And the three hours included figuring out how the plow would work. I think next time I could do it in half the time and I won't need a spotter to keep the lines straight. When we got done my wife told me she had doubts about the idea of the plow, but after seeing what it did, it was the right thing.


This is the progression since last fall. I tilled every thing in and spread compost shortly before snowfly. The garden was all ready when the plow arrived this spring. And we have begun planting.