If you are planning to start a garden, you may have comeacross the idea of using a rototiller to help you get started. If so, you are probably wondering about thespecifics of how a rototiller can help or hurt your garden.
So, what does a rototiller do? Arototiller is a gas or electric powered machine that uses turning blades(tines) to break up and loosen soil.This helps to prepare ground for a new garden. A rototiller will also pull up grass, weeds,or small roots to make it easier to dig and plant in the soil. A rototiller can even be used to till covercrops (green manure) into the soil to replace nutrients.
Of course, you may not want or need to rototill your gardenevery single year. When you do rototill,you might want to hire someone to help you.That way, you will not need to buy, own, maintain, and store a machine (notto mention buying and storing the fuel for a gasoline powered rototiller).
Let’s take a closer look at what a rototiller does forgardens. Then, we’ll take some time toanswer the common questions about rototillers.
What Does A Rototiller Do?
The primary purpose of a rototiller is to break up andloosen soil. A rototiller breaks up soilwith metal blades (called tines) that are turned by a motor. This motor is powered by gas or electricity.
A rototiller is useful for loosening up compacted soil. Your soil could be compacted due to flooding,matted roots, or a lack of planting and gardening over many years.
No matter what the cause of compacted soil, a rototiller canbreak up the soil. This makes it much easierto dig and plant in your garden. It alsomakes it easier to add soil amendments, such as compost.
Some rototillers are pushed from behind. Others are mounted behind a tractor andpulled along. Either way, they can savegardeners and farmers a lot of effort by eliminating the need to dig and turnup soil by hand with a shovel.
Rototillers come in front tine, mid tine, and rear tinevarieties. Each type of rototiller hasits own strengths and weaknesses.
For example, front tine rototillers tend to be lighter. However, they do not have as much power asfront tine rototillers, which are heavier.
Still, many rototillers are quite heavy, and the bigger onescan be difficult to manage if you are not used to the work. For example, some heavy-duty rototillers canweigh 200 pounds!
For more information, check out my article on how much a rototiller weighs.
Prices can easily cross $1000 for a larger rototiller with higher horsepower. However, there are some more affordable options available from Ace Hardware, including:
- Troy-Bilt 21BK225G766 21BK225G766 8 in. 2-Cycle 25 cc Cultivator – this small rototiller is called a cultivator because it is lighter and easier to handle than a bigger machine. It is also less expensive than larger rototillers, but the drawback is that its tilling depth is only 5 inches, with an adjustable width of 6 to 9 inches (easier work that takes more time).
- Craftsman 12 in. 4-Cycle/OHV 208 cc Tiller – this medium-sized rototiller is a little harder to handle than a cultivator, but if you can handle the extra weight, it will make the work go faster, since its width is adjustable to 13, 22, or 24 inches. It also boasts a tilling depth of 7 inches, but it is more expensive than a cultivator.
- Earthquake Victory 33970 11 in. 212 cc Cultivator/Tiller – this large rototiller is heavier than the other two listed above, but it tills the deepest at 10 inches. The till width is 16 inches, which is much wider than a cultivator. It is the most expensive of the three listed here, but you are paying for more power and ability to break through hard or compacted soil.
You may also want to consider hiring someone who owns arototiller to till your garden for you.This will save you the time and effort of digging and loosening soil byhand. It also means that you do not haveto buy, own, store, and maintain a rototiller.
For more information, check out my article on how much rototilling costs.
Besides loosening soil, rototillers have several otherbeneficial uses. Rototillers can:
- Till “green manure” crops (such as alfalfa) under the soil, to help restore nutrients to your garden, including nitrogen. For more information, check out my article on green manure.
- Pull up nutrient-rich soil from below the surface, so that it is available for shallow-rooted plants.
- Remove matted roots, such as those left over from a previous gardening season or from weeds that were cut off above ground.
One thing to remember is that rocks can damage yourrototiller. If possible, remove thelarger rocks from your soil before rototilling.
For more information, check out my article on removing rocks from your soil.
A Rototiller Can Break Up Compacted Soil for a New Garden
One of the most important purposes of a rototiller is forbreaking up soil for a new garden. Mostplants prefer loose soil, especially root crops like carrots that will growdeformed if they run into rocks, soil clumps, or roots underground.
Loosening compacted soil also makes it easier to dig. This means that you will have an easier timedigging rows or mounding soil, depending on what you are planting.
Finally, it is easier to work compost, manure, or otherfertilizers into loosened soil. Thismakes it easier to maintain the health of your garden soil in the coming years.
Soil can become compacted after many years of lyingunplanted. Soil can also becomecompacted if people walk over it, or if there is flooding. Rototilling will help to loosen up this soil.
Another benefit of rototillers is that they can remove someroots from the soil. As long as theroots are not too big and tough, a rototiller can cut through them – all youhave to do then is haul them away.
Can You Use A Rototiller to Remove Grass?
Yes, you can use a rototiller to remove grass. This is helpful if you need to tear up some ofyour lawn to make room for a new garden, or to expand an existing garden.
A rototiller will help to save you a lot of work by rippingthrough matted grass roots and breaking the grass into clumps. These clumps can then be picked up andremoved with a wheelbarrow.
An added benefit is that you are loosening the soil at thesame time that you are pulling up the grass.
If you want, you can also use the grass in your compost pile to give you something to add to your soil later on. For more information, check out my article on how to make compost.
Without a rototiller, removing a large area of grass can bea real chore, since it requires time-consuming and difficult labor with ashovel to dig out small spaces of grass at a time.
Will Tilling Kill Weeds?
Yes, tilling will kill weeds. This can be useful if you have a largeunplanted area of your yard that is choked with weeds.
At the same time that you are killing the weeds, you areadding nutrients back to the soil, since the weeds themselves contain nutrientsthat they pulled out of the ground.
However, there is one potential disadvantage of tilling tokill weeds. Although the parent weedsmay die, their children (seeds) may live on.
By tilling, you may be causing a bigger problem with weedslater on. Try to till weeds under thesoil before they develop seeds.
Otherwise, you may be better off pulling them up anddisposing of them elsewhere.
Can You Plant Immediately After Tilling?
No, you should not plant immediately after tilling. You should wait at least a couple of weeksafter tilling to plant your garden.
One reason to wait is that nutrients from plants tilledunder the soil will not be immediately available to plants. Many plants will take weeks or months torelease their nutrients.
For this reason, you may want to rototill in the late fall,before the ground freezes. This will leavethe entire winter and part of spring for the plant material do break down andrelease nutrients into the soil.
Another reason to wait is that tilling can disturb worms andmicroorganisms in the soil. It is a goodidea to give these creatures some time to recover before planting your seeds.
For more information, check out my article on how to get more worms in your garden.
If you are worried about a short growing season, then startyour seeds indoors to get a head start on the season.
Is Tilling Bad For Soil?
Tilling too often can be bad for your soil. As mentioned above, there are a couple ofgood reasons to rototill your soil:
- To loosen up compacted earth for a new garden
- To get rid of thick grass or weeds
- To till green manure crops into the soil.
If you don’t have one of these three reasons to rototill,then you probably should not do it. Thismeans that you may not need to rototill every year.
Should You Rototill Your Garden Every Year?
No – as mentioned above, you should only rototill yourgarden as needed. That probably meansonce when your first plant it, to loosen up the earth, and then again wheneveryou need to till green manure crops into the soil.
Can You Till When the Ground Is Wet?
No, you should not till when the ground is wet. This will make it more difficult to do thework of rototilling.
Even worse, it can result in compacted soil, which is theopposite of what you are trying to achieve by tilling. Wait until the soil dries out a bit beforerototilling.
Conclusion
By now, you have a much better idea of what a rototillerdoes, and how it can benefit your garden.You also know that it may not need to be done every year, and that itmay make sense to hire someone to help you do it.
I hope you found this article helpful – if so, please shareit with someone who can use the information.If you have any questions on rototillers, please leave a comment below.
