Eigenvector wrote:
The soil my yard sits on it extremely rocky. It's very nice soil, all
glacial till and stream bed composition, but more rocks than I care to
count. Digging a hole is an exercise in futility as I will encounter round
rocks about the size of a baseball or grapefruit more often than not.

I would like to take a rototiller to a patch of land but fear what will
happen with all those damn rocks. What kind of things should I look out for
when rototilling really rocky soil? Do I need a special tiller, should I
simply not do it, would renting one be a bad idea (I'm thinking of damage to
the unit), would a rototiller not do a good job? Are there other options
besides a tractor?



Depending on the type of tiller and the size and density of the rocks
your experiences will vary. I've tilled relatively rocky soil using a
huge rental tiller that had a sophisticated hydraulic drive system and
it did a fair job but still left me to manually pick up and dispose of
the rocks.

Far easier and quicker is to find a local company with a Bobcat-type
machine that has a rock-picker attachment. They can readily pick out
everything over about 3/4" leaving decently clean soil for you to amend
and work with. It is amazing how much an experienced person can do with
a Bobcat in a couple of hours and the cost is probably less than you
imagine. It certainly can't hurt to ask. BTW: there are also huge tiller
attachments to go with the Bobcat and the machine with a bucket on it
can rip up really bad tree roots and such with almost no fuss.


--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com