On Jan 21, 3:21*pm, David in Normandy wrote:
judith.lea says...





On Jan 21, 2:46*pm, David in Normandy wrote:
judith.lea says...

Last year I was enquiring about a cultivator for our garden which was
heavy clay. *Now we have a garden that is sandy in places and nice
friable earth in other places. *(It's in the Auvergne). *If you have
soil like this, and you were buying a cultivator, which one would you
consider best for that type of soil. *This is for the vegetable garden
only which is approx 100 metres sq. *Many thanks.

Judith

I bought a Briggs and Stratton S55R6 rotovator from Point
Verte for 499 euros. It has done a LOT of work since I
bought it two years ago and has been very reliable. It does
tend to snap the bolts on the rotor quite often - probably
because the ground is very rough with hidden big boulders
in places. However replacing the bolts is only a 5 minute
job so I consider them to be expendable. The engine always
starts first time and the machine is a pleasure to use.

I also bought one of those little electric rotorvators to
weed between the rows for around 100 euros, but this was a
waste of money as the rotors easily jam on small rocks or
lumps of clay. Also the ground has to be very dry and it is
a pain dragging the mains cable around while working.

One thing to beware of - only rotorvate when the soil is
reasonably dry or the rotors just get clogged with mud and
it is a pain cleaning them.
--
David in Normandy

David, thank you for this, I am going to print it out for Edward.
Also thanks for the tips, very helpful. *Is there any small
rotarvator, that will not clog up and can be used between rows?

Judith

It depends how wide you keep your rows. It is possible to
remove a pair of rotors from each side of the Briggs and
Stratton but it becomes a bit wobbly to keep upright unless
you are fairly strong. It does come with a couple of row
shielding disks at the outside the rotors which are
intended to stop soil landing on adjacent rows but I tend
to work without these on.

All rotovators will clog on wet ground. As a rule of thumb
if mud sticks to your boots then it will stick to rotors
also. Also some vegetation will twirl around the rotors and
clog them up e.g. brambles. Best to keep some sort of hook
handy to pull off any debris or mud. Home made garden
compost can also clog the rotors if it is very fibrous.

As for weeding between the rows I think I own every variety
of manual hoe in existence! Of these the Dutch hoe still
beats the others hands down. The problem is weeding really
close up to plants. Weeds tend to be more of a problem to
get when they are 1 cm away from the plant and no rotovator
can get this close with any precision.

It is best to view a rotovator not as a weeder but a means
of doing a really good dig and creating nice crumbly soil
without getting an aching back. They are really quick too.
Best thing since sliced bread :-)
--
David in Normandy- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Brilliant, thanks again David for very useful information. I will let
you know when it's purchased.

Judith