Beginner Articles

Garden Tilling Basics

As many gardeners know, part of building a successful garden is making sure your ground is well prepared for planting. Tilling, or the process of making sure your soil is broken up, fluffed up, and well mixed plays an important role in accomplishing this task. If you’re not familiar with the process or want to add some new tips to your repertoire, you’ll enjoy digging in to the following information.

Choosing Your Tiller

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For most garden jobs, a mini front tine tiller will be the best tool. Photo: northerntool.co

There are two common tillers that many home gardeners use:

Rear Tine Tiller: These larger modern tillers are great for preparing large areas of land to be planted. Newer models have special designs to help save the machine and your back by placing the weight over the blades in the rear. If you are using one of these larger tillers, be prepared for some bouncing and odd jerking, especially if your ground is hard.

Mini Front Tine Tiller: These tillers are designed for smaller areas and tight situations in which greater control and a smaller unit is required. These tillers still have some bounce and jerkiness, and be aware that they often will pull pretty strong – at times feeling a little more out of control than larger tillers.

When to Till

The time to till your ground is not always easy to gauge. However, it’s important to get this part of the process right as it will affect the your workload and garden success down the line. The keys to remember are:

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How to Diagnose and Treat Black Thumb

Black thumb is a serious and (plant) life-threatening disease that affects the lives of many people who would be great gardeners. Sadly, the disease also touches the lives of loved ones, as yards remain barren stretches of lawn bordered by the occasional dead plant. Plants given as gifts die quickly, and the person afflicted with black thumb disease sinks deeper into depression and misery with each unnecessary plant that passes on to the great compost pile in the sky.  There is a cure for black thumb, though.  Take the Rogue Valley Gardener Black Thumb Diagnostic Test to discover your cure.
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Fertilizer Basics

Fertilizer is food for plants. When you buy it, it will be labeled with three numbers, like 10-10-10. Each of these numbers represents the content by percentage weight of three components: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Each of these components does a different job to help your plants grow.

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Fertilizer can really give your plants and lawn a boost, but it's probably not the brightest idea to hold it in your hand like this. It is chemicals, after all. Photo: sxc.hu/egilshay

The first number stands for nitrogen (N). Nitrogen contributes for foliage growth. The 10 means that it contains 10% nitrogen by weight. If you're looking for a lush lawn, you'll want to feed it a high-N fertilizer (and make sure your mower's in good condition, because you're about to get a workout!).


The second number represents phosphorus (P), which helps rooting and setting flowers buds. A 5-10-5 fertilizer would be useful for a plant in which you want to encourage flowering rather that leaves. Chemical fertilizers marketed as "bloom boosters" are high in phosphorus.

The last number is for Potassium (K) which contributes to the overall health and vigor of the plants. Potassium helps the plant be strong against diseases and insects, and against droughts and cold weather.

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