If you’re thinking about starting a garden, you might have heard about using a rototiller to make it easier. You may be wondering how a rototiller can benefit or harm your garden if that’s the case.
What does a rototiller do? Rototillers are powered by gas or electricity and use rotating blades to break up and loosen soil. The result is prepared soil for planting. Rototillers can also remove grass, weeds, and small roots to make digging and planting easier. You can even use a rototiller to replace nutrients in the soil by tilling cover crops into it.
Rototilling your garden every year is not necessary or desired for everyone. Rototilling may require the assistance of a third party. It will save you the trouble of buying, maintaining, and storing a machine. The primary purpose of a rototiller is to break up and loosen soil. A rototiller breaks up soil with metal blades that are turned by a motor. This motor is powered by gas or electricity.
Tillers use metal blades, called tines, to break up compact soil. Loosening up compacted soil is possible with a rototiller. It is possible that your soil has been compacted by flooding, matted roots, or lack of planting and gardening over the years. Rototillers can break up compacted soil no matter what the cause may be. This makes digging and planting in your garden much easier. It also makes adding soil amendments, such as compost, much easier. Rototillers are sometimes pushed from behind. Sometimes, they are mounted behind a tractor and pulled. In either case, they will save gardeners and farmers time and effort by eliminating the need to dig and turn up soil by hand with a shovel.
Tractors pull some tillers behind them; these are wider and can cover more ground at once. A rototiller can come with a front tine, a mid tine, or a rear tine. Different types of rototillers have their own advantages and disadvantages. Rototillers with front tines, for example, tend to be lighter. Rototillers are heavy machines, and the bigger ones can be difficult to handle if you’re not used to them.
