Garden Buildings, Garden Tools and Equipment > General discussion

Rotovators

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newplantguy:
McCulloch are one of the best I believe.
If you can get a Howard Rotovator 2nd hand these are the best used to be made local to me, now out of business.
An electric type will not be man enough for the job you have in mind.
For the nettles use a Glyphosate weedkiller its the best way and Glyphosate is inactive in soil, but it will kill the roots.  Do not use when rain is forecast (within 6 hours) or drought conditions. :)

ideasguy:
Thanks for that link Jacqui.
Fortunately, my garden isn't compacted. Its 2/3 of an acre, and Ive either dug or prepared every bit of it in the 25 years I have been head gardener here ;D so know what its like!
I even did some double digging :o Boy that was fun!
Its quite remarkable, but the soil is different in different areas of the garden. That has taken a bit of getting used to over the years.

I'm looking at the models on the McCulloch website now Paul.
http://www.mcculloch.com/uk/products/cultivators-tillers/
I'll take your advice on the way to deal with the nettles! I used some weed killer at the end of the gardening season last year - the first time ever. It did the job well in the test area I treated.
To be continued...

bossgard:
George, this is an excerpt from an article appearing in the American Gardener Magazine of March/April 2006, a publication of the American Horticulture Society. It is authored by Shepherd Ogden, who is Director of Heritage Organics. He has several gardening books to his credit including Step by Step Organic Flower Gardening and The New Kitchen Garden.

I thought it might become a sort of blue-print for you when you start to work your future landscaping project that you are discussing in this Forum Topic.

“START IN THE FALL
   If you start a garden from lawn in the spring, killing the grass without herbicides requires considerable effort, so try to start in the fall. Wait until the active growth of the lawn has slowed down, then get rid of the grass. Spraying a herbicide on the ground where you intend to grow food seems foolish to me. For a small garden, say under 250 square feet, my advice is to just strip off the sod with a garden spade.
   For a larger garden, such as mine, you will need a two-step strategy. Start by rototilling the area, making multiple passes, first in one direction, then in another, then another. While the first couple of passes will only chop up the sod, if you keep at it, you should be able to work down four to eight inches – the depth of the tines.
   After rototilling, cover the entire space with black polyethylene. The thicker, “six mil” plastic works best and is available in different sizes at most hardware stores. Weight it down well with loose bricks or pieces of lumber so it doesn’t blow off during the winter, then leave it until spring.
   Over the course of the fall, the black plastic will catch the heat of the sun; raise the temperature of the soil, and cause the chopped sod pieces to regrow. But, deprived of sunlight by the plastic they will use up their energy reserves and die, then rot. Because the plastic also sheds water, come spring you’ll have a relatively easy job of preparing the garden for planting even if the rest of the yard is still soggy and cold.”

This magazine article was beautifully written and illustrated with before and after photos showing the area that Mr. Ogden worked. I tried to get access to the AHS website to get a link to the actual magazine article(s), even though I am a member of the society, it wouldn’t let me in. AHS indicated that they were having trouble with Microsoft’s IE to make it available to members. Hope this helps you.

- Toby

ideasguy:
Thanks for taking the time and patience (and going through frustration trying for that link) to post that information Toby.
It explains things in what I "want" to go, and I always feel inclined to one method above another based on what I think makes sense (rightly or wrongly ::)).
I like that one :D

A covering of black plastic is good. Ive done that in the past, accidentally! In fact thus year, I had a sheet of old corrugated iron (from the roof of a dismantled shed) covering an area approx 3 x 6ft. When lifted last week, there were some white roots creeping along the surface, but no "greenery". That part was easy to dig over with a fork.

Doing other things this past couple of days so haven't purchased yet.

Trevor Ellis:
Hi George,

just read your query about tillers and noted that you referred to Mantis. I bought one about five years ago just as the 4* petrol one came out (as opposed to the previous oil/petrol mix engine). I used it on the vegetable plot which was about an allotment size - maybe a bit smaller and it saved me a great deal of time and effort. The soil on that garden was heavy clay and though it did bounce about a bit at first (very hard baked soil at first use), once into the soil it coped very well indeed and produced a nice tilth. It's a case of evaluating the job it has to do - not "man enough" for breaking a large area of hard ground perhaps but brilliant for decent average garden soil. I'm glad that I bought one. A friend who also bought one used his on the lawn with the scarifier attachment and remarked how amazed he was at the amount of moss etc. that it removed.

Hope this helps - any questions about it - do ask.

Cheers,

Trevor

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