(Photo 5/15) Tilling Across a
Slope-Making
terraces across a slope
won't
leave
you
room
to .
cultivate
with
your
tiller
when
crops
are grown.
(Photo 5/13) Vertical Tilling on
Siope-
Tilling
uphill
on
a slope
with
row
markers
staked
out.
It
saves time
and
effort
and
builds
up
your
soil
by
power
composting
and
cultivation.
(Photo 5/14) Vertical Tilling
on
Siope-
Tilling
downhill
and
burying
sod
in
one
easystep.
are likely
to
cause erosion and
gullies
on a
slope.
Tilling
uphill and
downhill
will
enable
you
to
cultivate between
crop
rows
with
your
tiller
rather than hand cultivation
likely
to be re-
quired
if
you terrace across a slope.
Terraces should be formed by
tilling
a swath
three
to
four feet
wide.~
width
on
a slope
will mean that there
will
not
be
enough
room
to
use the
tiller
for
cultivating. You'll be able
to
prepare a seedbed
for
two
rows
of
plants
with the
tiller
and till
under
crop
residues,
but
you'll have
to
cultivate
by
hand by
walking
along the
inner
edge
of
the
terrace below.
.
Although
your
tiller
could
form
a terrace five
In three
or
four
passes, the
Troy-Bilt
Roto
Tiller-Power
Composter can carve
out
a flat
and wide enough terrace
for
planting. Start
to
terrace on the
top
of
the slope and
work
down. Each succeeding
lower
terrace
is
started
by walking on the edge
of
the terrace previous-
ly
prepared
uphill
of
it. Make sure that
you
don't
till the last 6
to
8 inches
of
the
outer
edge
of
the terrace. The
tiller
will cover
this
edge
up
with soil,
but
don't
till the edge. Keeping the
soil underneath the edge
unbroken
will prevent
terraces from breaking apart and washing
downhill.
Being able
to
till
vertic~lIy
up
and
down
the
slope
will
also
permit
you
to
constantly
and
continuously
improve the soil's water absorp-
tion and drainage
from
season-to-season, by
tilling
under
weeds, mulches, residues and
green manure cover crops
as
often as is pos-
sible. The more organic material
you
are able
to
till
into
a slope, the more
likely
you
are to
be able
to
prevent hard packed soil
conditions
(Photo 5/12) Satisfying Tilling Results.
from
occurring.
This,
of
course,
will
eventually
virtually eliminate one source
of
erosion (water
runoff
from
packed soil).
TILLING ACROSS SLOPES
Whenever a slope
is
extremely steep
or
too
short
for
vertical tilling,
you
may
decide
that
you simply must
till
across
the
slope laterally
..
First make sure that the slope
is
not
too
steep
to
till safely at all.
The
best
way
to
achieve
good
results tilling across the slope is
to
create ter-
races
for
your
garden. See
Photo
5/15.
63
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