Never look a gift tiller in the Tines ~ Spring 2000?

by David Heiller

The Hillbrand Boys came over last week with a tiller in the back of their truck.

I had been going to borrow Steve’s tiller, after I had first weeded the garden by hand. I like to weed first, then till. I use a Mantis mini-tiller, which is so light that it’s more like vacuuming the garden than tilling it.

I don’t like to till in weeds. I like clean dirt. I pull weeds out by the wheelbarrow-full almost every day at this time of year, then I till, and for at least a week, there isn’t a weed in sight.

But Steve said he needed the tiller and couldn’t let me borrow it, so it was now or never with the tiller. He was already unloading the tiller as he said this.

David tilling our new garden spot
 after we moved to the Denham area.

That put me in a dilemma. I wasn’t ready for the tiller, but how do you turn down a free till? Steve had tilling on his mind—I could see it in his eyes—so I said OK.

He backed the tiller out of a wooden box that his brother, Deane, had built on the back of his old Ford F-250. He eased it down two stout planks. It was like unloading a bull, and the tiller wasn’t a whole lot smaller than a bull.

We walked over the garden area that needed tilling. It was full of weeds—plantain, dandelions, thistles, and quack grass, to name a few. Steve suggested that we pull the quack grass, because that will spread when it is tilled up. We did our best, but pulling weeds isn’t easy when a tiller is pawing the ground nearby. Steve soon had the engine running, and pulling any more weeds at that point would have been dangerous to my banjo playing future.

“Are you sure it’s OK to till all this in?” I asked Deane. He has a degree in horticulture from the University of Minnesota.

“Should be fine,” he answered. That was what I needed to hear.

I turned to Steve for verification, but the gleam in his eye had turned into a wildfire, and I knew he would say anything just for the chance to till my garden.

And so the tilling commenced. Steve started out left, then went up the side. He turned to the right and gave it gas. He cut to the right, and swung the big beast around with the skill of a surgeon, He plowed down the middle, sinking up to his ankles in the black dirt. He whirled and twirled that tiller like a stout high school sweet-heart at the 1969 Paynseville prom.

“Got any more to till?” he asked when he had finished, and I could see I’d better find some more garden to till or there would be trouble.

So I pointed out another patch, and Steve tore through that patch with the same skill as an Indy 500 racer, chewing through sod and quack and a few small trees like a glacier in overdrive.

Oh, the joys of the harvest are more
 fun than making new beds. 
Noah and Cindy with broccoli joy.

Finally he was done, spent. He kneeled by the side of his tiller and tenderly cleaned the tines, getting ready for the next patch of ground that might be available for a free till.

Steve wrestled the tiller into its wooden cage and strapped it down securely. I thanked them, and I meant it. Then the Hillbrand Boys drove off into the sunset in search of fresh gardens.

Now the waiting has begun. I’m working in that Hillbrand soil, planting in it, scraping away the roots and leaves and seeds and stems and wondering if I will have the greatest garden in Birch Creek township, or the greatest patch of weeds.

Time will tell.