Tilling a garden in the Dakotas, maybe loam / silt / clay ? I don't know. How do I prevent clumps ? Even if I make 10 passes with the tiller, I've still got rock hard clods. I'm using an old JD 112 with a belt drive 40" tiller. What if I wait until the ground drys out more before tilling ? The soil produces fantastic potatoes, corn, tomatoes and cucumbers.
Did you plow all the snow off (; Way to early to till a garden when its wet not only it wont till well put it makes hard compaction below the tines
Jonas, Wait til you see what we're getting tomorrow, then Tuesday forecast much worse !!! That's on top of the 50" still on the ground. So you're saying it needs to be dry ? That's not going to happen because I'm in the flood plain and the garden needs to be started before June or July.
If a soil has enough organic matter, you can till it whenever you want. Clay, or clayey sand/silt will turn to bricks if it's worked too wet, and a rototiller is the worst way to turn it into bricks. If you can add 6" of compost and mix it when dry enough, then you can till it wet and it will still come out fluffy. It will compact the plow pan something awful, but you'll be watering the garden anyway.
Delmer, The "bricks" I made last year were the worst ! My bricks were hard enough to be considered rocks. Maybe I need a de-watering well or tile, so I can plant before summer has passed ?
Tile is popular. Raised beds do wonders. Organic matter will do wonders for the soil too. You can crush the bricks with enough weight, but you're only making the texture worse the next time.
If you can, drain tile will absolutely help your situation. We had a 90acre field of heavy soil that always worked up clumpy. Two years ago we tiled the entire thing on 40ft centers. This year, that same piece worked up beautifully smooth, no lumpy, clumpy bricks to attempt planting in to. Tiling is not cheap though, but can produce excellent long term results. Two days later we worked the next piece of heavy ground that had not been tiled. Lumpy, clumpy, random wet holes throughout the field. We're hoping the stand will be decent because the drill was just bouncing across the field. Our spring has been wet and we're just pushing through now to get seeding done.
This is a dry year for us The winter was almost completely open. The globalists would say it’s caused by CO2 global warming. We worked the bottoms in the fall and are able to get into areas that were underwater last year