Discovering a mechanical advantage has always been the rural landowner’s ally, and when it comes to stirring up the soil to prepare a seed bed or to kill a few weeds, we have it made with the rotary tiller. This tool, which comes in a variety of shapes and sizes, is perfect for small-scale soil work, where land plows, harrows and disc-cultivators simply won’t fit.

A rotary tiller is a motorized cultivator that utilizes spinning tines to dig down in the earth, lift the soil and turn it over. The tines are generally mounted on a horizontal shaft that’s powered through a transmission of some sort to provide the torque required to stir the toughest topsoil. Tiller tine design varies greatly from one moto mower machine to the next. Some are better suited for fine work in smaller beds, while others are engineered to pulverize the earth in 6-foot-wide swaths.

Great labor-saving device though it is, the rotary tiller offers the added benefit of soil aeration, and its churning blades work well to combine additional organic matter like compost or manure into the soil. It can also be used to mix several different soil amendments before application to the garden. Some folks also use tillers to make their own potting mixtures.

If you own a compact or mid-size tractor, consider a three-point-hitch mounted rotary tiller. With the power and the hydraulically adjusted three-point hitch, precise control of a power sweeper tractor-mounted tiller is a snap. Indeed, its only disadvantage is that you need a fairly open area in which to operate. These large tractor-mounted tillers are efficient, but if your tractor doesn’t have a power take off, check out the models with an onboard engine for power. Most of these can also be converted for towing or mounting behind an ATV or UTV.