These days I am busy going through review on the Internet about lawn and garden tracotr. I look at the consumer reports, look at the newsgroup and a couple of people who have riding lawn mowers. I was going to buy the Craftsman brand because review says it has less repair and our friends have them too. However, some ppl say the service provided by Sears is unacceptable: slow and confusing. I like the John Deere one but they are very costly. I also like the Kubota because John Deere and Kubota are the top 2 players in tractor industry. So I went to Keswick Rental and talked to the salesman there. I was also thinking about the Toro GT2100 because it has Kohler engine, which supposed to be better than Briggs & Stratton. The salesman, Rob is very friendly and he says John Deere is better than Toro (they are dealers of both). He suggests if I don’t want to spend too much money, get the JD LA130 for 2579. He then showed me the difference in frame, belt, axles among different tractors they have. Then we came to a Kubota TG1860. It is 2 years old with 385 hours on it. It is priced at 3200. Obviously for a 2 year machine 385 hrs is a lot but Rob told me the seller was in landscape business so the hour is high. Mower deck is 54″, engine is 18HP Kawasaki liquid-cooled. The frame is solid. I asked for some price reduction and he gave me 3100. Devliery is 60 and they would serviced it before delivery. It was a hard decision because my budget is 3000 including tax. However, I know this model is much more durable than the LA130, which is the cheap version that John Deere manufactures for Home Depot. I hope I am not making a mistake buying a used tractor but the new TG1870 will cost close to 5500.

What a beautiful day it was yestereday and today. I have managed to set up the new pressure washer and clean the chicken coop. I didn’t manage to clean it thoroughly but I will give it another try before the chicks arrive. There is a hole in the fence around the coop that needs fixed as well. A KillDeer bird laid 4 eggs on the ground under the apple tree beside the coop. When we get close it chirps loudly to warn us getting too close but when we press on, it flees! Can’t wait until we can see the baby birds. Also, we will be getting our 4 apples and 2 pear trees this thursday from Siloam Orchard in Uxbridge. Hole digging now.

Our metal shed was finished last weekend! It took us 2 days to complete it. We bought the 300 8’x6′ Spacemaker metal shed from Canadian Tire. It is the cheapest shed we can find. Of course, the steel wall is so thin that it dents easily. But it servers our purpose for storing the garden tools, soil and snow blower. We used 12 patio slabs as the base. May be some day we can build a wood shed with windows.

Today we start to spread some grass seeds around the house. Since we have more than 1 acres of lawn we figure we just need to overseed around the house. The seedlings are doing well except the pepper. We need to start new pepper seeds because none of the ones we planted sprout, strange. Half of the garden is covered with fabric, and weeding is really not a fun thing, especially we have to do it by hands. But the girls enjoy it, plus having a tiller means extra cost and pollution. Sure we can prepare the beds in 1 day with a tiller, but it gives the whole family a project to work on.

Today the girls have planted 50 seeds in the tray. Tiffany: Pumpkin, Sweetie Cherry Tomato Odelia: Ace Tomamto and Golden Pepper Sonia: Chinese cabbage and Butternut squash Derek: Stupice Tomato, Riesentraube Tomato, Yellow Cherry Tomato and Cabbage Still some flurries today.

We purchsed some landscape fabric from Costco at 40 for 4’x220′. I think this is the cheapest everywhere. The quality is commerical grade. We have started to clean our garden. Because there is too much weed, we are going to use the fabric to cover and kill the weed until the planting time. We also put some spoiled hay over the fabric to prevent direct sun. We will start our seedling within 2 weeks. This year we have purchased some tomato seeds from TerraEdible and some oriental seeds from Veseys. New crop we are trying this year are potatoes and strawberries (also from Veseys).