Our soil is clay and sand courtesy of the Dungeness river over eons of flooding. It gets pretty hard and packed, so before we try to roto till, we use a shovel to break it into chunks.
Next, Tom uses our little red tiller to break up the soil to a depth of about 8 inches.
Finally we spread 3"-4" of "Sequim Gold" (pure cow manure from the Smith Dairy) on the rows and roto till again. Lots of work, but it makes for easy planting and strong healthy plants. It took 3 of us about 4 hours to prep 700 row feet of soil. Tomorrow we will begin to plant out in earnest, for though it's not our 'guaranteed' last frost date yet, warmer weather is predicted for the next 5 days and our seedlings are busting out of their pots in the greenhouse.
