Topic: To rotivate or not to rotivate - that is the question!!

[Jude1966]

Hello all

As some of you will know my partner and i became proud allotments owners today!!

Having now seen it in its raw state!! We wondered if anyone has used a motorized rotivator!??
The soil type is clay, and it slightly squidgy at the moment, and it has approx 2 feet of mainly grass and weeds on it??

Would anyone have any suggestions on a small machine for digging this over (rather than our weak little girly arms!!) or do we stick to plan A and just cover it with cardboard and plonk soil/compost on top??

Help!!

[Crash]

I bought one today at the local auctions. £40 for a Mountfield rotovator with accessories. Cheap and cheerful. Never win a beauty contest but hope its strong enough. 5hp Briggs and Stratton motor on it. I'll have to wait till my back is a bit better before even trying to get it out of the back of my van!
Some people say that using one only gets the weed roots deeper, but others say if you have a problem with couch grass turning the soil over regulary helps control the problem.
My lottie is 13 rods and I started feeling it was a bit too much for 1 person to get on top of. I'll feel more upbeat when it looks like a proper lottie!

[Roy Bham UK]

I have a Honda Tiller that is my mate as I run my lottie alone :'( ;D but from the start our council sprayed weed killer and rotovated our lottie for free so check em out see if you can do the same.

If not, I'd either dig the weeds out then buy a rotovator or spray and rotovate.

You don't really need a tiller/rotovator, you can be patient and dig a patch ie; 6ftx4ft and plant something in it to keep you interested, then move on to the next patch, cheap and cheerful. ;D

[wardy]

If your plot is mostly weeds, as most are, then you will just exacerbate the problem by chopping them into zillions of little pieces and digging them back in. 
You need to cut weeds back by strimming first.  then you could cover up with sheet mulch etc and just prepare one bed at a time.  this way the rest of the plot is slumbering under black plastic or cardboard and not getting any worse while you tackle a bed.  You can then either weed kill your bed with glyphos and wait til it does its thing (about 3 weeks ish) then dig and get all the couch roots out, or go for no dig "lasagne" method
There's no need to try and do all the plot at once - it's not going anywhere and I'd resist the urge to try.  You're more likely to stick at it if you do it in manageable chunks, eg a bed at a time.  I've had mine 15 months now and two thirds is still under black plastic and I'm making beds one at a time.  I have a huge weedy grassy area which I keep mowed and it looks lovely now - like a lawn if you don't look too close.  this is my relaxing area where the deck chairs and table are. 

[Derekthefox]

Welcome to the forum !

The general concensus is that rotovating established weeds will only spread them, and I tend to agree with this. I cleared mine manually, yard by yard, slowly and steadily, and this wins the day. Pile all the top growth you remove onto uncleared ground, this will act as a mulch and help suppress further weed growth. Don't worry about having girly arms, I also did when I started, but as some of the members will testify from my avatars, it hasn't done me any harm!

Good luck!

Derekthefox :D

[wardy]

Derek  Speaking of girly arms.  My OH commented to me the other day that my arms were looking muscly and tanned.  Wish the same could be said of me legs!

[RosieM]

Hello and welcome Jude,

When I got my latest plot it coincided with another new owner at the other end of the field.

Much to my husband's chagrin I insisted that we clear the plot by hand, digging over, bed by bed (as described so delightfully previously) freeing all the couch and bindweed roots as we went. Allotmenteer number two took the rotavator approach, my hubbie was deeply jealous of the sight of man and machine pitted against the ravages of nature.

Two years later we have a neat(ish) and productive plot, full of veg, fruit and flowers. We still struggle daily with the bindweed - as do most of us- but things are well with the plot.

Allotmenteer number two has a disaster area of pernicious weeds, lumps and bumps where yet another time/labour saving idea has gone wrong - (dig below the level of the weeds and seive all the soil back into the hole - I don't think so). More importantly to me, he has not harvested so much as a bean from the plot.

I cannot count the number of times over this year, as the sun has set over the rhubarb, that my husband has said "do you know, I'm glad we did the thing properly"   ;)

I can't say any more than that,

Good luck

RosieM

[bupster]

My plot's still very new so I wouldn't want to pretend that I'm any kind of an expert, but it was rotavated - twice in the space of a month or so - before I took it over. I don't know if it was done very badly or very well, but what I have is gorgeous friable soil that's full of worms and dead easy to work. Some of the beds that I'm digging over by hand are full of bloody great roots and others aren't.

What it seems to have done for me is given me a plot that's much less scary than it would have been otherwise without vastly increasing the weeds (as everybody warns that it does). As above, you do still have to put the backache in; I'm going through each bed by hand and rarely clear more than one each weekend. I'll be lucky to have the whole plot rough dug by spring. But because of the rotavation I've managed to sow some rye grass that seems to be competing with the couch and bindweed, and I'm digging ground that even now, two months on, seems like more earth than weeds.

Again, I officially haven't a clue what I'm doing and would recommend that you listen to the others rather than me. But just to say that my experience of rotavation wasn't all bad, as long as you don't think it'll save you work :)

[Derek]

If you have heavy clay soil as I do/did then after winter digging spread some 'Claybreak' on it (from B & Q).

This did the job for me and the plot is much easier now to deal with

Derek

[AndyC]

I am going with the manual approach because of what I've read aboput rotovating and alos because I am on a budget!!.  I am utterly knackered :( but have done about 50 sqm in the last three weeks.  I think I will now cut back the rest and sheet it until next year and get on with something more fun (onion sets and garlic). 

Andy

[spacehopper]

This will be controvertial and you may want to ignore it because I know nothing, but I would be inclined to rotovate it now and top dress with some lime. The weeds won't be growing as much over the winter and the lime and the cold weather will help break the soil up. I'd mark out some beds and dig in some coo poo into some of the beds over the autumn and winter. You could also plant some onions/garlic/broadbeans in some beds.

[MikeB]

Welcome

I own and use a rotivator,

Two things, 1. yes rotivating does spread weeds (especially bind weed), but the ground is so broken up that they can be pulled by hand quite easily. 2. The rotivator blades form a 'Hard Pan' at the bottom of the trench over a period of time which can seriously affect the drainage of the ground and also the plants ability to access trace elements in the sub soil.  Every 5 years drive a stake appox 2' into the ground every foot or so and wriggle around to break the 'Hard Pan' up.

A rotivator is great for creating a fine tilth, mixing in compost, manure etc but for 'digging' compact earth is as hard or sometimes harder than digging using a spade.


MikeB