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Mini Tillers and Flame Weeders
The Honda FG 110 Mini
Tiller:
Everytime I get a new and potentially dangerous garden tool my son Zak
follows me around a while to; I presume, make sure that I don't
kill myself. He shakes his head, gives me a kind of frown and
goes inside to his laptop and polishes off a little greeting that he
e-mails me (the most recent is above). I've received a bunch of
these unexpected e-mails over the years...and so it was this father's
day. The
pictures usually depict his idea of how easy it would be for my new garden implement
to go terribly wrong. "This could happen...really", he
says.
I grew up sensing that my mechanical skills (or lack of) could get me
into trouble. My big brother, my dad and my grandfather all
learned to ride motorcycles before they drove cars; my brother
still rides a Harley. When I came of age, I figured I would
maintain the tradition. Sure, I was born to be wild, I
thought. Instead, my father and brother looked at each other and
in an instant both said, "he'll kill himself on a motorcycle".
Years earlier, my brother, after my relentless pleading, let me try out
his go-kart; he had just outfitted it with a more powerful
lawn-mower engine. On my first and only ride, I flattened an
entire row of Russian Mammoth Sunflowers before I came to an abrupt
stop splintering the corner post of our split rail fence and losing my
two front
teeth. Ever since, I've had a bittersweet relationship with
most things mechanical.
Back to this father's day. I contracted lyme disease earlier this
year and just felt terrible. Darn those deer and their
parasites. Unfortunately, at the time that I usually do my
weeding of the narrow rows of vegetables with my dutch scuffle hoe; a
wonderful and safe invention I must add, I was experiencing the
worse symptoms. A new cover of compost was spread over the garden
by my friends from Briermere Farms and my nephew and I had laid the
t-tape for irrigation, some early vegetables were planted, but the
gardens were mostly abandoned for the last few weeks as I wrestled with
an unusually severe case of the disease (perhaps because I waited so
long to see the doctor). Now that the regimen of doxycycline was
almost finished, I looked out to the gardens which instead had become
one with my overgrown lawn. "It's impossible to see the plants
from the weeds", admonished my 95 year old mother who is not
usually so
observant. My friends from Port Jefferson who have been involved
with the liseed project for many years, Ray and Mindy came over to
weed. They joined Zak in the garden and spent hours with both
lawn mower and handweeders. I pulled my spyrochete-wracked body
into the field to survey their progress and realized that this was
going to be an impossible job.
Then I read the sales ad for the Honda mini tiller. The FG 110
seemed like it would be the next logical stem up from hand weeding. I
would just till alongside of the crop and then apply a mulch of last
year's straw bales. I plant close so a normal rototiller just
wouldn't get between plants without damage and neither would my flame
weeder at this point. The FG 110 has a
little 1.1 hp, 25cc engine that powers four tines that till a width of
only nine inches and less if you remove the outer tines. Googling
"honda mini tiller" I learned it garnered a 5 out of 5 star rating
among customers surveyed and was described as "cute", "indispensable"
and a "non-stop powerhouse". The little tiller weighs under 30
lbs. and fit into the back seat of my car. It has transport
wheels that are replaced by the drag bar in the field but really, this
little tiller is as portable as a hoe. It's a marvel of
miniaturization. Unlike the raucous whirr of a chainsaw engine
that a lot
of mini tillers have, this 4 cycle gasoline engine is amazingly quiet
and easy to start. Over the years I have used all sorts of
tillers, mostly Troy-Bilts of all sizes, an old Sears front tine from
the 1950's and a newer rear tine Craftsman but nothing prepared me for
the FG 110.
I adjusted the drag bar to till at a shallow depth at first.
After priming the gas, flipping the choke switch to the up position and
turning the switch on, I pulled the starter rope. It started on
the first pull; I pushed the choke switch down, engaged the handle
throttle lever down to the metal and boy, was I in business. It
was like walking your dog; leashed to a pit bull taking off after the
neighbors
cat. The little tines spin at 182 RPM so it can move and it does
the second you engage the throttle. It's the drag bar that you
have to push down into the soil to keep it in line. Push down on
the drag bar to slow it's forward motion, tilt up to free the drag bar
and off you go. Too much drag and it digs holes that it becomes
bogged down in. Not hopelessly, because you can lift it out with
one hand or as I've learned by experience, rock it right and left to
get it to move. Not enough drag and it skims along the surface
sometimes catching to churn up the soil and weeds into a finely
pulverized mix. So much for the precision tilling I was expecting
to do. It's unexpected bounces and skips can wipe out the crop or
t-tape if you get too close. Operating the FG 110 is like a
wrestling match between man and machine. I can't say I liked the
mini tiller at first. I tossed it all kinds of
adversity allowing it to dig up to it's air filter in soft sand hoping
that it would quit and I could return it for my money
back. It drags you forward, you drag it backward, you rock it
back and forth, tilt it up and down and somewhere along the line, you
can get the job done. I'm beginning to understand why a lot of
folks like this tough little machine and the more I use it the more I
understand how it can be controlled to do the job. It takes a bit
of muscle...but it is a lightweight. Even with it's
limitations, I now see a place in my shed for it.
Red Dragon 100 Flame Weeder:
A few years ago we had cleared and leveled an additional acre of land
planning to experiment with growing a diversity of vegetables year
round under glass using heat pump technology and some other
innovations. It seemed like the neighborhood should have a safe
and reliable source of year-round produce. This was after
9-11 and we were thinking a lot about security issues. It also seemed like a good time to research the use of an
acre sized venlo style greenhouse to meet the demands of a small
neighborhood... the urban farm, a place where our neighbors could see
where their tomatoes, lettuce and scallions were coming from not just
in summer but year-round. We figured that we would explore the
concept and see if we could also solve some of the difficulties of
growing diversified crops organically in one confined system.
There were many questions to answer such as, how many families could
this kind of operation serve; and the big one, at what cost? It
never happened and those reasons are for another "rambling".
I have since used the land to expand our vegetable breeding
work. It required a healthy dose of compost and top soil since
this was quite a sand lot. We brought in lots of leaves and tons
of compost. It was a beautiful rich black compost but
unfortunately proved to be full of weed seeds. Wherever we spread
it the weeds would follow. I decided to not till the back field
but instead just topdress it for a number of reasons so as an
alternative, I ordered the "Red Dragon 100", a 100,000 BTU flame
weeder. It's a low cost small flamer which I ordered with a
"squeeze valve kit", a hand regulator that makes the unit safer
and easier to control that it would otherwise be. I went down to
our local farm supply store to purchase a propane cylinder. I
made the mistake of bringing my Red Dragon into the store. "I
need propane for this", I proudly explained. "We can't sell
a tank to you for THAT", the young lady behind the counter said, "we
have liability issues with flame weeders." I was totally caught
off guard and a bit puzzled. I spent a few moments surveying the
store and then I noticed the all too familiar chemical aroma. The
smell is always there when you walk into the store from the bags of
pesticides and bottles of concentrated "who knows what" that have all
sorts of warnings on the label but manage to get spilled or
broken. "You mean I can't buy a propane cylinder for this (waving
my flame weeder in the air) and you guys don't have an issue with all
those chemical herbicides that you sell?", I pointed to the aisle
alongside us stretching to the back of the store. The
conversation went back and forth in a similar manner and I left without
my propane tank.
I enjoy the Red Dragon. I find that it wilts the weeds with just
a brush of the flame and little fuel and within days they dry
brown. I've learned to regulate the flame so that I can manage to
flame weed even in the corn and tomato patch. My son who altered
the above photo to impress on me why I shouldn't be so glib using my
weeder always imagines the worse, "Don't use the "Red Dragon" until I
get home", he yells to me. And then he follows me around with a
fire extinguisher. Maybe I'll upgrade to the "Red Dragon 500"
next year, then I'll be doing some serious weeding.
