Pile Of The Brown Stuff

Progress report on our Veggie bed, named RIMU. Dateline:27052015-13:45NZST Reikorangi Valley.

Since the weekend when the bed was being rototilled, two-and-a-half days later, my progress at sifting the soil has been, in the words of my friend Charles Dickens, rather tardy, mostly for reasons beyond my control.

By the way: whilst checking whether "rototilled" should be hyphenated to "roto-tilled" or not, I encountered an interesting (in my anal view) word "tilth": 

"...The term soil tilth refers to the soil's general suitability to support plant growth, or more specifically root growth. Tilth is technically defined as the physical condition of the soil as related to its ease of tillage, fitness of seedbed, and impedance to seedling emergence and root penetration..."

So, I would guess, this digging over and sifting of the soil constitutes one of the steps in attempting to improve the tilth.

Improving the tilth of the Southern half of the RIMU veggie-bed 

Our steps in tilthing are: (1) Digging over the soil and removing all the grass, weeds, etc; (2) Sifting the loosened soil to remove the pebbles and rocks, tree roots and any other undesirables. At this stage, I would estimate that 44.5% (or roughly half the bed) has been completed; (3) Adding a good dollop of earthy organic compost to each pile of soil (roughly a barrow-load) and (4) mixing these components thoroughly together with any other required conditioners, and (5) finally raking and leveling the whole bed as a unit.

  

A close-up of the sifting operation - sometimes a bit difficult with wet soil...

We chuck the virgin soil shovelful by shovelful on top of the wire mesh, switch on the vibrator (bang the frame with your hands) and coax the sods through the holes, allowing the pebbles and grass bits to remain on top of the mesh and to 'ski' down to the bottom in a pile of dirt.

This is barrow #3 of stones and organic material which has come out of about 4 square metres of veggie bed.

Oh look, the drizzle has stopped. Time to stop writing and to start shoveling again.

Drat, look at that. The Pohutukawa veggie bed, which has just been sown with grass seeds as a green compost for the upcoming veggie season, has been infiltrated and mutilated. Hello....,labrador Sophie has just been spotted slinking away, after escaping under the mesh fence!

The veggie bed POHUTUKAWA, doggo-tilled to expose everything!