Making the bed.

The two-wheel tractor has sat dormant since Fall, basically still unused. It got a big test today, we hilled most of our raised beds!

We're using a guide-wire clamped to the machine, following string-lines to get the beds and aisles reasonably straight. The better job we can do of straight/square, the easier it will be to put on row-covers and tarps etc.

This machine handles pretty well and has features like individual wheel-brakes which aid with turning etc. but I was definitely worn out after we had this job done. We made 94 raised beds and it takes two passes for each bed - I plowed 188 100ft-long rows!

Here's a closer shot of the rotary plow. It basically cuts a trench in the ground and throws the dirt to the right side. By doing two passes on each bed, this creates a walking aisle and piles up several inches of dirt across the 30"-wide growing bed.

Here's the finished product. Hours of planning and measuring were well spent ahead of the plowing.

Our last step was to put a silage tarp down over the beds we'd be planting next. This keeps the soil dry, kills weeds and encourages earthworms to process the soil near the surface.