Sheldon wrote:

>
> My new neigbour decided to put in a
>> garden this year. He paid $850 for a used rototiller for his tractor, a
>> good deal, but like you say, a lot more than he would pay for fresh
>> vegetables.
>
> That's a lot of money for a used rototiller for a home garden.

It was a rototiller to fit on his tractor. He tilled a very large patch
of garden in a matter of minutes. He will get many years of use of out
that attachment.


> So then I
> bought a 7 horsepower Simplicity rototiller, $700. It's fine for
> busting virgin soil but is way overkill for secondary tilling... don't
> you believe those TV ads where you see some 70 year old 90 pound
> granny operating a tiller with one hand... that 7 horse monster drags
> me around, gives me a real work out.

They are not the easiest machines to use. That is for sure.


I used it two seasons and then
> got wise, I bought one of those little Mantis tillers... don't let
> it's size fool you, that thing works beautifully, and only $300. So,
> I have $3,500 worth of tillers... how much salad will that buy at the
> market? And tillers are only the tip of the iceberg. There's no end
> to what gets spent on gardening... all those trips to the nursery just
> to buy soil ammendments... bags of top soil, peat moss, etc, ain't
> cheap.

My neighbour did not need to add anything to his soil. The soil here is
good to start with. He put his garden where the old neighbour used to
have his pigs and chickens about a decade before. Everything came up
beautifully. The only trouble was they they went on vacation just about
the time that everything was ready to harvest. He enjoyed several meals
of fresh veggies from their garden.