My attention was caught recently by a magazine flyer advertising a lightweight garden tiller. If the marketing was to be believed, this piece of equipment would revolutionise gardening life. It would do everything except bring you a chilled glass of wine while you lay in a hammock watching it do all the work.
I waved it under Mr Mac’s nose and after some humming and hawing and Google research he decided that it might not be such a bad idea given the state of our soil, the number of vegetable beds and borders (soon to be increased) and the amount of landscaping in this year’s garden plan.
But for Mr Mac it was to be none of this namby pamby lightweight nonsense. Oh no! Off he went to the agricultural machinery shop (I’m sure there is another name for it!) and on Friday last week, our garden saviour was delivered.
Life changing!
So despite the single figure, coldest Easter weekend on record temperatures, we set about seeing just how life changing this piece of kit was going to be. First of all the empty veg bed……
This is the veg bed before.
An action shot!
The result after 25 minutes!
Impressive I think you’ll agree. Mr Mac was now a man on a mission to rotivate anything that did not move but as there was not anything else ready, he decided to try it on the compost.
Now I am ashamed to admit that our compost bins have been badly neglected since last summer and all three bays were full and needing turned. Mr Mac attacked them with the tiller, churned it all up and I (because Mr Mac had put his back out by this point) turned it all to be left with one bay of finest useable compost, one bay “in progress” and one empty. All in all this took us a couple of hours but mainly due to the fact that (a) there was so much and (b) I’m a girl!
Now while this was also very successful, Mr Mac has decided that to make the compost break down even faster (and hence transform our lives beyond recognition!) he really needs to get a shredder.
Boys and their toys!
gardeningforlawyers 
My life changing garden tool was a Black and Decker weed whacker. Now I can’t stop edging things!
Hello, I’ve been a very bad blogger as of late! But I hope you’re well 🙂 Garden looks fantastic 🙂 check out my latest goings on (just put up a load of updates about the greenhouse…etc 🙂 http://www.carrottopsallotment.com/the-greenhouse-april-2013/
Hi Adam – Brilliant to hear from you. I think everyone has been hibernating and not much blogging going on. I can’t believe it is still so cold. Miraculously stuff is still growing! I checked out your greenhouse – love the use of pallets for staging. We get loads of pallets but they usually go on the wood burner to heat the water! Don’t know if you noticed my other blog – http://www.ayearinmygarden2013.com – a photoblog to try and catch the changing garden over the year. A bit of an experiment but it keeps me amused! Take care and keep in touch!
Has Mr Mac decided on a shredder yet ? I’ve just spent weeks researching and can’t find a reasonably priced one that does what it’s supposed to.
Hi Julie. Mr Mac has been back up to the farm and come home with a catalogue. Apparently petrol shredders are recommended over electric ones, the only problem being they start at £800! We did see shredders in Costco but I have been advised they were the electric variety which would explain why they were substantially cheaper. I think you would need to be a professional gardener to justify spending that much money on a piece of equipment! I think we will just have to rely on the worms in the compost and persuade them to work a little faster!
That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking. I’ll just have to take whatever prunings I don’t use in the garden to the recycling centre – sob 😦