Gardening in 2025

Chug, Chug, Chunk. It’s toast.

I’ve had this tiller for thirty-three years and shouldn’t be sour that it finally died, but it did. I am.

The Troy Built rear-tine machine was a graduation from a front-tine tiller. That was a hard lesson to learn, but a tiller with front spinning tines will work you to death, and every time it hits a rock, it will bounce, and there you are trying to wrestle it back to earth.

Two neighbors have head starts on gardens, and they don’t know that I drive by coveting their straight rows of this and that flush with green leaves.

I hauled the tiller to the shop because it would not start. There was nothing I could do to make it cough, and it was pronounced dead for the last time. It was the engine that had broken its last clod of clay, shot, finished, and how did water get in there?

To prove his point, the shop owner flipped the tiller over and rusty water poured out of the spark plug hole.

He is one of the few people who understands, without being condescending, that men can become emotionally attached to machines.

He offered a comforting idea: ”Just maybe the tool store has an engine that would fit, but everything else would still be thirty-three years old.”

His comment reminded me of the woman who kept having plastic surgery so that in the right light she’d pass for thirty something while the major parts were collecting Social Security.

I passed the idea by the Kansas Woman who said there wasn’t room in the freezer for so much as a bag of field peas.

According to her I’m stuck remembering the best parts of having a garden and not the frustration of what goes with it.

There was one afternoon when I put up 120 ears of corn in the freezer. “And how long did it take to eat it all?” she asked.

Well, there ARE more of us these days considering that while “Little Miss Phillips” isn’t any of that anymore and has her own family a half hour away. They’d help whittle down a mess of corn.

Then there are critters. There was always a battle between me and the deer as to who would benefit most. “And what about the coons?” she continued, recalling a day when we saw a coon walking upright out of the garden with arms full of corn.

I think I’m smarter than I was a couple of years ago with a deep respect for electric fences.

There is a better spot for a garden than I’ve used in the past.

There are “gently” used tillers for sale, but a gently used tiller reminds me of the gal with lots of work done. How many of the original parts still work?

joenphillips@yahoo.com