Rototilling

By: John Degroot

April 21 2012

Rototilling - Garden Clippings for April 21, 2012

A freshly rototilled garden is the envy of every gardener.  A good rototiller breaks up chunks, pulverizes the soil, and makes the ground soft and fluffy, ready for planting seeds and starter vegetables.

But before you go out and buy or rent a rototiller, consider the pros and cons.

Rototilling does little more than add air to the soil.  Adding air to the soil may be desirable because it makes soil much easier to dig holes, seed a furrow or level with a rake.  Rototilling also gets rid of small weeds.

A common misconception is that rototilling improves soil’s performance.  Yes, rototilling temporarily makes soil more workable, but after a good downpour or two, followed by a dry spell, the soil will return to its previous texture.

Deep rototilling will often do more harm than good.  All that soil movement may upset the beneficial microbial activity in the soil and will reduce earthworm population.

Don’t use a rototiller to turn a grassed area into a vegetable garden.  No matter how much you till the earth, you won’t get rid of the grass and you will curse the grass as it grows throughout the vegetable garden.  Instead, kill the grass first, or peel the grass off with a sod cutter and then go over the soil with a rototiller.

Similarly, if you are unhappy with the quality of your grass and wish to rototill it under in order to put down new grass, remove or kill the old grass first and then go ahead and rototill.   If you try to pulverize existing grass, you will have a tough time levelling and battling the clumps of old grass.

A rototiller is the ideal machine to mix a layer of manure or compost with the existing soil in order to prepare a new garden.

When choosing a rototiller for your task, go for the bigger the better.  Small lightweight machines will likely not do the trick because they don’t have enough weight to go into the earth.  A larger tiller with wheels in the front and tines in the rear is a better bet.  Unfortunately a larger sized tiller is out of range for most homeowners’ pocketbook.

The best time to till the garden is when soil is slightly damp.  If you attempt to operate a rototiller on dry ground, you will have a hard time penetrating the crust.