Troy-Bilt 12065 - Manual (Page 20)

Preventing Tines From
Becoming Tangled
When power composting, you
may find that the tines become tan­
gled with material (tall vegetation,
long grass, tough vines, etc.).
WARNING
Before removing any debris
from the tines, stop the en­
gine, allow it to cool, discon­
nect the spark plug wire and
move it away from the spark
piug.
Failure to do so could result
in personal injury or property
damage.
To help prevent tangling:
1. While tilling, swing the handle­
bars from side-to-side about 6”-to-
12". This “fishtailing” action will
often dislodge any debris.
2. Always use the deepest Depth
Regulator Lever setting possible
(without making the tiller jump or
buck upward).
3. Till under cover crops and crop
residues while they are still green.
4. Shred or chop up any tall,
tough, or stringy organic matter
before tilling it into the soil.
5. You may have to mow or cut
vegetation before power composting.
6. If the tines are heavily tangled,
stop the engine and disconnect the
spark plug wire. Then, cut away
any debris.
Tilling on Siopes
Plant your garden preferably on
flat ground, but certainly on no
more than a moderate slope. Do
not operate the tiller on a slope that
is too steep for safe operation.
Plant garden rows vertically on
a slope (up and down the slope).
This lets you use the entire area for
a seedbed and leaves enough room
between the rows for cultivation.
You lose these valuable benefits
when you terrace garden (dis­
cussed later).
If you put enough organic mate­
rial into your garden’s soil to im­
prove its water-holding capabili­
ties, you should not have a prob­
lem with soil erosion.
When you begin to till vertically
on a slope, start at the bottom and
go up. The tines dig in more
deeply when you go uphill than
when you go downhill. As you
turn around at the top to go back
down the hill, overlap the uphill
pass by about half the tilling width.
A
Photo 4-11: Cutting tangled tines.
WARNING
Do not operate the tiller on a
slope that is too steep for
safe operation. Till slowly
and be sure that you have
good footing.
Failure to do so could result
in personal injury or property
damage.
NOTE: When you till on a slope,
the oil level in the tiller engine
slants toward the downhill side of
the engine. Some internal parts
may not get enough oil. To pre­
vent this, make sure that the engine
oil level is full to the point of over­
flow from the oil check tube
before
starting to till.
Also check the oil
level every thirty minutes while
you’re tilling on a slope.
Terrace Gardening
If your garden is too steep or too
short for vertical tilling, you may
have to till across the slope. To
achieve best results, use your tiller
to create terraces for your garden.
Make the terrace 2-to-3 feet
wide. You can plant one or two
rows of plants in each terrace and
later till the plants under.
However, you may not have
enough room to use the tiller for
cultivating. If you make the ter­
race too wide, you would have to
dig as much as a foot into the up­
hill side of the terrace and would
end up trying to grow plants in
poor subsoil.
Start to terrace at the top of the
slope and work down. Always
keep the uphill wheel in soft,
newly tilled soil. Start each suc­
ceeding terrace by walking below
the terrace you are preparing. In
three or four passes you can create
a terrace wide enough for planting.
Leave at least a 12" wide un­
tilled space between terraces.
Keeping the soil unbroken here
will help prevent the terraces from
breaking apart. Refer to the next
page - see Figure 4-12 - for im­
portant information on making ter­
race gardens.
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