I'm a convert to rotovating!

[queen of the cobs]

I'd heard people say that it just chops up the weeds and spreads them all over the plot, so I've done all my digging by hand so far, making sure to throw the weeds away. I dug over my beds at the end of last year and covered them with black plastic to keep the weeds down. When I lifted the plastic about a month ago there were a few things sprouting but not much, so I lifted them out and forked the whole bed and sifted some compost onto it.

I thought this was a good amount of work and was pretty pleased with myself. Then the allotment society started hiring out small rotovators and I thought I would give it a go. What a difference. It took about 5 minutes a bed and it looks a fine dark brown and very crumbly. I am going to hire the big one next year!

[hypnophil]

I have been doing everything by hand because i have beds, but now i have decided to go for rows instead and it seems loads of work, did your rotavator do hard soil too?
maybe i should hire one and do the whole lot in one go...

[Paulottie]

This is an interesting question. I did my first lottie the hard way. Very few nasty weeds now. but I grew most things through mypex for the first year or two. Now a tiller or rotavator is fine. Still you should give the land time to settle it is better done in winter.

I've just started another one and this time I've ploughed it twice and rotavated it twice to break it down to a tilth.( you may find if the ground is very hard the rotavator will just run away from you giving as much backache as digging). I am growing spuds through the mypex again. That plastic is the key though, it weakens the weeds so when you peel it back it is so much easier to dig out the pale sprouts.(and collect up all those slugs and snails). It still requires some work but it is much easier.

I think if you have a weed ridden plot then churn and chop it up without removing the nasty roots they will just resprout and strangle your crops.

[queen of the cobs]

I have been doing everything by hand because i have beds, but now i have decided to go for rows instead and it seems loads of work, did your rotavator do hard soil too?
maybe i should hire one and do the whole lot in one go...

My soil was pretty sandy so couldn't give you the benefit of my extensive experience (all 15 minutes of it!) but this was a very small rotovator, petrol driven, and it did a very thorough job! I can't see that it would have trouble with hard soil. Definitely get rid of all the weeds first though.

[SarzWix]

I've always wondered what happens to the worms when you rotovate? Do they get chopped to pieces too? I love my worms, I wouldn't want to chop them up!

[queen of the cobs]

I think it churns rather than chops. It's like a big set of paddles which go through the earth like a mississippi steamer. I'm sure the worms will be fine.

[Mike and Louise]

Our eletric rotovator from argos is great. We have very hard clay soil and it even broke that up into small lumps.
After adding loads of compost to the lumps, we went over it again and it turned out fine.