What Is a Rototiller and What Is It Used For?

The key to a lush garden is well-draining, nutritious soil—that’s where a rototiller can help. Rototillers break up compacted soil and help you add amendments like mulch, compost, and fertilizer. Here’s what you need to know about what rototillers are used for and how they can take your soil to the next level. 

What Is a Rototiller Used For?

A rototiller will take the place of various manual gardening tools, such as hoes and spades, to break up soil and turn it over for fresh planting. Depending on its size, gasoline or electricity powers the rototiller. This tool breaks up soil using large, rotating blades. 

Properly breaking up compacted soil is essential to your garden’s success. A tiller can help you work in compost or fertilizer, and the tilling process adds oxygen to the soil, boosting helpful organisms’ growth and ensuring your plants thrive. In addition, it can disrupt the lives of pest larvae living in the ground, preventing big outbreaks in your garden.

There’s no need to purchase a rototiller. You can rent one from a hardware store from $40 to $50 per day. 

When to Not Use a Rototiller for Landscaping 

Though rototillers can help you grow a thriving garden with a fraction of the effort, you can’t use them in every situation. Some homeowners will only use a rototiller in specific areas of their garden and stick to manual tillers and spades in other areas. Avoid rototillers when:

• You have a lot of rocks and debris: Rototillers can’t break through rocks or large debris like twigs and tree stumps, which can become a hazard to you and the machine. You’ll have to clear the land beforehand (professional land clearing costs about $120 to $150 per hour).

• The soil is very wet or waterlogged: This can create chunks of compacted soil, especially if you have dense clay soil.

• Weeds are taking over your garden: Tilling will help sow the seeds of existing weeds, meaning a small weed issue could become bigger. Weed your garden before you use a rototiller.

• You’re inexperienced: Rototillers can be dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. If you don’t have experience, it’s best to call a landscaper near you to get the job done with their own equipment.

• You haven’t called 811: Before using a rototiller, check for underground utilities by calling your local Dig Safe hotline.

Types of Rototillers

When looking for a rototiller to landscape around your house and garden, the various terms can get confusing. Here’s a guide to decoding the different types of rototillers. 

Cultivators

Cultivators are portable, lightweight, and ideal for smaller garden areas that simply need fertilizer worked in. They come in both gas-powered and electric models. 

Garden Tillers

Garden tillers are much more robust machines that break ground, plow, and stir soil. There are three main types of garden tillers:

• Front-tine: These are one step up from cultivators and can blend compost into and break the ground of new, small garden plots with sandy or loamy soil. 

• Rear-tine: Much more powerful than front-tine tillers, these are ideal for breaking ground on a new garden with tough soil. These rototillers have large wheels with tines in the back of the machine, often with choices for tines’ moving direction—forward, counter, or both. The tines’ ability to move in the opposite direction of the wheels allows the rototiller to penetrate the soil more deeply. 

Vertical-tine: Less common than front- or rear-tine tillers, vertical-tine models cut forward through the soil rather than downward, making them faster.

Benefits of Using a Rototiller

You may want to use a rototiller over manual tools for a few reasons, whether you want to loosen compacted soil or plant flowers in mulch. Here are some of the benefits:

• Saves time and labor: Compared to manual tools, a rototiller helps you do the job faster, requiring a fraction of the labor.

• High-quality work: Using a rototiller correctly should loosen soil or evenly mix in amendments compared to tilling by hand.

• Saves costs: Rototillers are inexpensive to rent compared to labor costs. You can save on the cost of landscaping by doing this job DIY, but only if you’re comfortable using heavy machinery on your own. Rototillers can be dangerous if you don’t have experience. 

How to Use a Rototiller 

The best way to use a rototiller depends on the type and the purpose. Since this is heavy machinery, hiring a landscaper is a good idea, especially if you’ve never used heavy machinery. If you decide to tackle this one on your own, you’ll need to:

1. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions to start your rototiller.

2. Set the blades to the correct depth. If your soil is compacted, set the blades to shallow and gradually go deeper.

3. Steer your rototiller in the correct direction.

4. Turn off the rototiller and clean the tines periodically throughout the job.

The rototiller will jump or bounce if it hits an obstruction like tree roots or rocks. Be careful when rototilling around trees, boulders, paver patios, and other hardscaping features.

Things to Do Before and After Tilling

Before you plug in this big piece of machinery, read our tips to ensure you complete the job correctly.

1. Clean Up Debris

Pick up any debris, sticks, and rocks that could jam the rototiller or prevent you from completing the job efficiently. If you are tilling a lawn, remove the old sod using a sod cutter. 

2. Check the Soil

If the soil is dry, give it a little water to moisten it, but don’t overdo it. You don’t want it to be muddy, so start with a light sprinkling and check the texture. Work some soil between your fingers, and if it crumbles easily, begin tilling. If the soil clumps together, the soil is too wet. 

3. Set the Depth

Set the rototiller’s depth bar to four to six for leafy plants or 6 to 8 inches for deep-rooted plants. If the tiller has a guard over its tines, put the cover down so it doesn’t pull up rocks from the deeper parts of the soil.

4. Add Compost

Add soil additives like compost or fertilizer after one round of tilling, then till again to mix these materials into the soil. Consider testing the soil to confirm which soil additive will benefit your space the most.

5. Change Direction

After tilling in one direction (say, east to west), til in the opposite direction for best results (north to south). 

6. Rake the Area

Rake the area with the backside of a bow rake to smooth out the soil and prepare it for planting. 

7. Hire a Professional

A rototiller is a heavy piece of machinery. Consider hiring a landscaper to prepare your soil so you can save time and energy for other home improvement projects. 

8. Repeat As Needed

You probably don’t need to till your soil yearly. Tilling too often can disturb beneficial worms and microorganisms in the soil. Only use a rototiller when you need to break up compacted soil to prepare it for a new garden or work soil additives into the earth.

C.E. Larusso contributed to this piece.