Rotavating, tilling, ploughing... any appreciable differences?

[Minty]

I would carpet/ cardboard the whole bloomin lot and after a few weeks remove the carpet/cardboard and dig little by little. It is quite a slog but i find it easier if i dig for 15 mins and then rest for 10, within a few hours you will start to see a difference and that will spur you on. If you click my blog link you will see how bad mine was untill i carpeted it and then dug. Good luck what ever you choose, Minty
P.S Where in the east mid are you ??

[Seahorse]

Minty, I am totally inspired by your progress I'm in Lincoln, a bit far away from you, or I'd be offering beer & BBQ in exchange for a helping hand!

[Minty]

Thanks im glad it helped a little. Beer and BBQ The way to everymans heart, though yes a little too far, sorry !. This forum and the other users have given me massive inspiration and i can`t thank them enough.
Once you have cleared a little and can see some difference you will get (if not already) a massive sense of inspiration with what you have achieved.
Best of luck Minty

[Seahorse]

Cheers Minty I will get there in the end... one way or another!

[bubblewrap]

[QUOTE=Seahorse;145520]

(in the words of Van the Man) I can 'get down to what is really wrong' .

In a caravan?

[Madasafish]

I would cover it all in RootOut - to kill the brambles. And leave it over the winter. Do it again in early Spring.

And clear a small area to start growing..

Then in summer I would RootOut the large uncleared bit and then rotovate it.

May take a bit longer but much less hard work and you get some crops ... and you will not be chained to a hoe for the rest of your life:-)

[HeyWayne]

Get yerself a truckload of Semtex!

In all seriousness, a rotavator is much harder work than it often looks. Last year when we had the garden re-landscaped we hired a rotavator/tiller to try and level out the area we were having returfed. It took my brother-in-law and I to keep the blummin thing under control. Neither of us are what you'd consider "slight", but by the end of it, we were shattered. That was only on an area roughly 10mtr sq.

[Peter]

It is a knack.

Depending on the rotovator type there are two control methods.
Bounce along on the digging bits with a skid or spike behind.
With this type you push the handles down to stop forward motion by digging the skid down onto undug ground, thus lifting the rotating digging bits off the solid ground, so it no longer gets pulled forward.
To dig you lift the handles up cuasing the "pull" of the rotating digging bits to pull the rotovator forward as they try to cut the solid ground.
The knack is a balancing act on the handles to trade digging against forward motion.
The knackering bit here is that the machine will writhe its handles as alternate rotors "bite" or as one side gives more resistance than the other.
Drive along on wheels with the digging rotors under a shield at the back with a depth control skid going through the shield.
With this type you select the forward speed from two or three gears and the depth to dig with the skid.
These spin their rotors much much faster then the first type, so tend to grind solid soil when driven on solid soil. However you will only be able to dig down a couple of inches the first pass or it will not be able to grind as fast as it is moving forward.
If the machine finds the soil too hard or you ask it to dig too deep then drive from the wheels gets overridden by launch control from the faster spinning digging rotors and the machine will surf away, hence alot of them have deadmen handles where if you let go or flick the switch the engine cuts out.
The knack is a balancing act between digging and launching. Sometimes the depth skid can be turned the wrong way rount to become a spike that digs in as the machine goes forward, thus holding it back. Howard refered to this as "spragging" and it was their reommended technique. Anyway careful adjustment of depth skid and speed should trade forward progress against digging. a tip here, set the skid too shallow and you WILL launch.
The knackering bit is having to keep going back over previously dug ground, going down maybe and inch with each pass.
The really knackering bit is if it does launch you must immediately lift the handles and cut the engine speed, but by the time you realise it is too far away for you to lift as you will fall on your face if you do. If you press down on the handles and it is set wrong the launch will continue until you hit something, you end up tensed waiting to deal with a launch.

Basically get it wrong and you will be tired and knackered as you will be wrestling a 3.5 to 12 hp machine instead of guiding it.

Best advice, break the soil up first by rough digging, just turn over fork or spade full and leave the clod to weather for a month or two then rotovate into a seedbed.

An american or irish type spade with a long straight handleless shaft is easier on the back than an english garden spade.

Hope this helps.