How many of us pay to plow the garden?

[Spookwriter]

Looking towards spring, and the garden.

I bet a good number of us have a garden. My question is, if you have
it plowed by someone, what is a fair price?

I've always rented/ borrowed a tiller for my Kubota. Just takes a minute,
my garden is done. Thinking about buying a new one for myself this year.
But to justify the expense, I would actually have to plow more than my own
garden.

So back to the question. What do you think is a fair price to plow someones
garden? Size shouldn't matter much unless you start talking about acres.
Average size garden shouldn't take long with the Kubota.

Yes, I'm mobile. Dually pickup, car trailer already here. My insurance would cover
the truck/ trailer/tractor/ on the road. Certainly wouldn't cover the actual act of
my plowing in their yard.

What would you think? Would it be worth my buying a tiller? Can I justify spending
money on something I want anyway?

 

[Spookwriter]

Let me go on to say that a new 5 foot King-Kutter tiller is $1300
all in. In my mind I could justify the expense over two years.

$650 a season.

$50 a garden, I need 13 gardens.
$45 a garden, I need 14.5 gardens
$40 a garden, I need 16.25 gardens
$30 a garden, I need 21.66 gardens


Tiller here rents for $50.00 a half-day and is really worn out.
To borrow one is a pain.

I really want to buy one, just need to justify the expense first.

 

[Frosty]

Can't help you with the cost, but if you are planning to work on someone elses property you might want to think about getting licensed and bonded... My BIL does handymantype work, and has run into situations where there were buried power wires, etc... that the land owner didn't know were there. You need to cover your behind...

 

[mississippifarmboy]

I'd look at it like this instead myself

$50 a garden, I need 13 years
$45 a garden, I need 14.5 years
$40 a garden, I need 16.25 years
$30 a garden, I need 21.66 years

Just doing your own garden.

 

[MeatKing]

We bought a tiller, now we do our neighbors for free, lend it to hubbies brother and friends... We usually end up paying for everyones gas, it's not much but still...

 

[FireTigeris]

Get insurance on the machine and let others rent it form you for $40 ?

 

[sesa]

My son runs the tiller and we feed him, does that count?

 

[farmerlor]

Don't forget your costs for maintenance, gas and gas for the truck going to and from the various gardens. We paid 200 for our garden to be plowed one year but then we have a big ol' garden and we were breaking ground....which reminds me you'll want to get paid extra for ground breaking since it takes two or three passes usually. Anyway, the next couple of years we rented a tiller and I finally convinced husband that this whole thing of paying to rent a tiller, then finding out once you got home that the darn thing didn't work or wasn't up to the job so driving all the way back (we're about 30 miles from the nearest rental place) and then rushing through the tilling to get it back on time was ridiculous. We bought a very nice tiller with income tax that year and we've never regretted it even though we don't do other people's gardens to justify the expense. I figure in ten years we would have paid at least what the tiller cost in rental fees and gas driving back and forth to rent so it's more than worth it to us and Greg can take two or three days to do the tilling as well as get out there anytime he wants to till away the weeds or clean out chicken pens with the tiller.

 

[dewey]

If owning one was a must for some reason and using your numbers, I'd rent a tiller to do the small $50 side-jobs, book 3 jobs per 1/2 day rental each saturday and in less than 8 saturdays working 1/2 day each, have enough to buy yourself a good used one, free & clear, at half price or less of new.

 

[HHandbasket]

Our backyard is the size of a postage stamp, and the section we till up is about 12 feet by 22 feet. We have a Mantis hand tiller & do it ourselves. Takes about an afternoon to do the whole thing, including digging out weeds & adding in/tilling-in/mixing-in the compost. In fact, it'll be happening here REAL soon. If we get a good day without rain on the 30th, it'll be happening that day.