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Today, even with a debt limit deal and the plan to sic "Super Congress" on the deficit, the Dow Jones Industrial Average took a nearly 650 point nose dive. News that bad leads one to consider the old wisdom of "tending your own garden"--in my case literally. If you have been following along, I garden partially as practice for the end of the world as we know it. When the stock market acts like it has the past two days, it seems like more than just some nightmarish fantasy.

Thankfully, the Rapitest Mini Moisture Tester by Luster Leaf makes tending your garden a whole lot easier.

It seems that my garden is producing more cucumbers than I know what to do with! I love to eat them cut up with salt, but there are only so many cucumbers you can eat! 

Here are some unique uses for cucumbers:

^{Image by WordRidden via Flickr}

It's been said that the right amount of herbs and spices can make anything taste good. Bland fried potatoes become delicious French fries with just a little salt. Red pepper on plain cheese pizza can really bring out the flavor. Unfortunately, many recipes call for more than just a little salt and pepper, and buying all manner of dried herbs at the supermarket can become a clutter-inducing endeavor. Fresh herbs are obviously better, but the ones you buy at the store cost more and go bad quickly.

How to solve this dilemma? Grow your own. Sound daunting? It isn't.

Whether you live on a big farm or in a small apartment in the city, herbs are one of the easiest things you can grow.

I am a suburban home owner and like many other home owners I have a small vegetable garden in my back yard. Last year was my first year attempting to grow anything and it was a real learning experience. For one thing, I learned that even after adding six inches of free dirt from Craigslist, I still had soil better suited for making adobe bricks than for growing tomatoes.

So, what to do? Well, this year I was going to dig deep break up all the hard clay and start fresh. Doing it by hand, even in my 5" x 12" garden would be a backbreaking task.

Time to call in the power tools! Luckily I had a Troy-Bilt TB154 tiller at my disposal for the weekend.

But, the real question to be answered:  Would one of the smallest, least expensive, lightest weight tillers be tough enough to break up the hard packed clay of my 50 year-old suburban back yard? Let's break out the Troy-Bilt tiller and see.