As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
This is a follow up review of the Cherry Roto Tiller as what good are pictures if you ain't got something that will work.
I decided to try it out in a prelim as the garden was looking like weed hell. We were 6 weeks behind in where we should have been due to HAARP winter not ending, so the weeds just took off.
I will refresh the memories of my children in this was a pig sty, literally. The English moved in. Then the Catholic Russians moved in when the German Lutherans went broke and right by the well, they had a pig pen and a mud hole. To this in looking forward in the picture was a hog pasture, which was so abused it was just a white gray sand when I took over.
Our soil here is called sandy loam. We have a black sand of about a foot which is covering how ever deep of baby shit brown clay. That is what the college kids will tell you, but any given field here will have sand and clay spots, even this garden plot will got from sand to clay, and I can tell you that if you mix sand, clay and loam you get the Hebrew bricks in Egypt. This shit will blow like dust when dry, and it will pack in hard as concrete. That is what I was facing in quite hard earth.
So I lit into it as you can see by the above photo. This was the sandy part that I had put in a pile of cow shit compost. I was stunned how good the tiller performed.
This tiller is like riding a not too tame horse. You have to pay attention as if you lift too much on the handle it will buck and try to take off. Not enough and it will just auger own. It does not take much fighting though as if you get the right touch, it will churn along and pull itself ahead, after you get the concrete broke up.
As you can see below, it pulverized the hard pan pretty good. That green row in the middle is onions that came up this spring, but did not produce last year. I probably should have just tilled them out.
Now for the tiller part. It worked really good. I got it to pull down and click a few times but never in the hard pack. It would do that when I pulled it back with allot of loose dirt or when it got caught in a wire. So this thing does have enough horsepower at 2 HP.
I tilled it length ways and then diagonal. I think I could have went one more time as 3 times in other areas really seemed to be what it liked. It took me several hours to get this thing done. It did not seem that long to me, but that is what it took. It was hard, but not as hard as spading all of that and you do not end up with as fine of dirt product.
I need to add more compost cow poop on the far end. Some of those spots are hard clay concrete. Am getting to the point in this pioneer garden of getting the majority of rocks out.
Am planning a shift in the Egyptian onions and the artichoke are going to move this year as they are in the way. I can do better in clean tilling without leaving the spots that hold weeds.
The only really troubling part of this tiller is not the part I was Inspired to make. The thing leaks oil in the tiller. I use 90 weight gear oil, and I noticed that the tiller gears get HOT, as I could not touch the metal housing as it was that hot. Nothing melted down. glowed red or fell apart in the seals, so I don't know if these things heat up like that or what. I will just have to watch this one and top the oil off every time I use it.
This should be the last ball buster work for this tiller though. The plan is in the fall to dig the garden up and get it ready for spring, meaning incorporating more cow shit into the soil and then hit it once in the spring to get ready for planting.
I still have two years of wood stove ash to put on the garden and a Jesus tub of commercial fertilizer to side dress the plants.
I'm well satisfied with the Cherry Tiller. It did punishing work and did not fall apart. I will probably bring home JYG's fancy tiller to go between the rows as I think it is smaller, and it should get some work too. Then tilling this fall will be not much of a chore.
Still want my big ass tractor to put that Vibra shank through there and root to China, but still waiting on that one. That will make tilling easier too or too easy in it will burrow down, as I do not have the depth set gauge on this one. Someone took it off. Don't need it as I know how to nuance ride this thing now.
Only wrapped the power cord up in the tiller once, so was a good experience. Chinese motor got a bit warm, the plug ins were cool enough as a I used heavy cords.
I really could not be more pleased with this thing.
30 year-old Griselda Jimenez Orozco died late Thursday morning while she was rototilling her backyard.
A rototiller is a tool with sharp edges used to break up soil.
Orozco was born in Mexico and grew up to be an attorney, at one time even working in the Mexican President's office.
Nuff Said
agtG
