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General => The Shed => Topic started by: Jeannine on March 25, 2007, 14:04:36

Title: Stirring the soil?? Anybody heard of this.
Post by: Jeannine on March 25, 2007, 14:04:36
I have a gardeing book which has the following story in it,I am interested to know if there is any truth in the theory.

One year our 12 sows got into the garden and rolled around in the soft soil where we had just seeded.I was sick about it,I figured they had ruined out carrot patch.We had rain,and about a week later I went into the garden,looked down and saw perfect rows of carrots all along where the pigs had rolled. Wherever they had rolled there were no weeds-other areas were extremely weedy.I told this story years later at one of my gardening talksand one of the guests said it was called " stirring the soil".She had done it in her gardens ever since she was a little girl, about 60 years of gardening.It was amazing to hear this wonderful lady describe practising for years what we had dicovered by accident. Here is her poem.

                                         Stirring the Soil

In the Spring when seeds are sprouting,stir the land.
In the summer ,nothing doubting,stir the land.
Stirring helps each little seed,stirring kills each little weed,
Stirring,let this be your creed,stir the land.


Has anyone heard of this before.

XX Jeannine

Title: Re: Stirring the soil?? Anybody heard of this.
Post by: theothermarg on March 25, 2007, 16:10:00
no but its interesting , i,v been told i,m very good at stirring ???
marg
Title: Re: Stirring the soil?? Anybody heard of this.
Post by: Jeannine on March 25, 2007, 16:40:29
You are  too much... but then it takes one to know one eh! XX Jeannine
Title: Re: Stirring the soil?? Anybody heard of this.
Post by: cornykev on March 26, 2007, 18:48:31
Pigs and flying come to mind.   ;D ;D ;D :P
Title: Re: Stirring the soil?? Anybody heard of this.
Post by: Larkshall on March 26, 2007, 19:59:22
Cor!  ...................... Is that where they got the idea from.

When I was a boy, before the second world war, I remember seeing a very large machine in the field opposite our bungalow. It had a very large engine, bigger than any tractor I had seen at that time, It was on tracks and had two very large wheels at the back which were horizontal and had tines about 3ft long attached. As it moved slowly along the tines stirred the ground.

It was only after another seven years that I started work as a decorators apprentice and the yard next door to ours was leased by Fowlers of Leeds. One day I went round to Fowlers yard and there was the machine, being serviced. It was a Girotiller, the engine weighed twenty tons (it was a ships engine), the three twin cyclinder blocks weighed two tons each. The last I heard of the machine was several years ago when the ground was too hard for tractors to plough it, but the Girotiller wasn't beaten, it cultivated large areas of land without any problem.