"FarmerDill" wrote in message
...
Many years ago, when I was digging my first vegetable garden, I rented a
rototiller to remove the lawn and ended up regretting it. The machine
inverted clumps of grass which still had to be overturned by hand in
order
shake off the useful soil. If (in a fantasy world), it had NEATLY
overturned
them exactly 180 degrees so the grass simply died, that would've been
great,
but it was a fairly random mess. I ended up finishing the thing by hand,
which wasn't TOO awful, since I'd just bought a really nice spade & fork.

At my new house, I'm about to create another vegetable garden. Again, I
have
excellent tools, but I'm wondering about renting a tiller, since I'm
dealing
with a 20x40 foot area. However, I'd like to avoid the same mess. Was the
previous fiasco due to the type of tiller, the way I used it, the
position
of the moon, or what? Combination of all factors?

All tillers mix the layers of soil and whatever cover is on it. The only
thing
that that will turn the soil over 180 degrees is a spade/spading fork or a
large turning plow (16 or 18 inch bottoms)
Tilling is not usually a major problem if you go over the ground several
times
to thoroughly incorporate the plant debris.

Maybe that last sentence is the clue here. The first garden was created on
top of what appeared to be a pottery factory which was blown to pieces the
size of dessert plates. I probably just got ****ed off and stopped tilling.