I managed to get the backyard garden area tilled today. This is about a 40′ x 60′ area where I’ve been moving in lots of topsoil from other parts of the yard for several years now. Last spring I filled the rows with wood chips, and I vacuumed up a lot of leaves and piled that up, and added soiled chicken bedding material too– all that material is now tilled into the soil. My goal is to keep adding lots and lots of carbon to increase the organic mater content and improve the soil over time, even though I till it each year. I’ll let it sit like this until late March, then I’ll hill it up and plant in it. I think I’m going to get plastic weed block this year, because I was not able to keep up with the grassy weeds last year. This is the first year I was able to till the area without breaking a sheer pin on my tiller machine, so I think the soil is getting looser.