Rototilling – First Flowers

I spent about three hours at the pumpkin patch today with the rototiller. All of that walking around caused the soil to compact, making it a bit harder for the root systems to flourish. Some gardeners may advise against rototilling because it can potentially disturb the biology of the soil, but my soil isn’t the greatest in the world, so it really won’t hurt. If you’ve been working your soil for years, you may in fact disturb a very delicate biological balance, but if you’re like me and you are trying to improve the soil, I say go for it!

The patch looks great and the weeds have been defeated (for the most part). I didn’t get too close to the plants (stayed about a foot and a half away) to make sure that I didn’t damage the root systems, but the areas that have been tilled are going to make it easy for the roots to sprawl out even further.  Oh yeah, it looks much nicer too!

Also, some of my plants have female flowers that are blooming and ready to be pollinated! I hand pollinated the one pictured above today, which means that pumpkins are just around the corner! Since I have so many different varieties of pumpkins, there is a good chance of some weird varieties popping up in the patch.