Why do rotovators have discs outside the blades?

If you are looking to buy a tiller / rotovator to help with weeding and maintaining your vegetable garden or allotment, you may have arrived here looking for help and advice about machinery.

Using a machine to carry out the harder work goes against the grain for some gardeners who might believe that double or single digging and weed control using a hoe is the only way, both environmentally and from a soil condition perspective, to prepare or maintain soil.

Manual labour is both time consuming and hard work. Why spend a whole summer trying to keep up with maintenance when you should be enjoying your hobby? Many of you reading this will have day jobs and can possible only go to the allotment or out into the veg patch at weekends.

After a showery week and as the sun intensifies towards mid-summer, weed growth can be explosive and really destroy any enthusiasm you might have as that overwhelming feeling of failure takes hold when you see weeds literally establish and grow up to six inches in a week.

A rotovator or tiller can easy this feeling and actually bring enjoyment into the maintenance; leaving you time to get on an experiment with new seeds, thin-out and transplant your seedlings.

A couple of words of advice on how to use a rotovator successfully. First, don't expect the machine to do too much. It may be necessary to hire in a heavy duty robust rotovator, double or single dig your soil in the first instance, at the beginning of the season, to assist in creating the right structure and rootzone.

Only after that could you expect a smaller machine to carry out the inter-season maintenance work.

The paddles or blades are best if they work against the direction of travel or contra-rotate. A much cleaner cut and finer amelioration is achieved. The more often you cover the soil, the finer and manageable the task becomes.

Try to vary the depth of operation other wise the blades can create an impermeable hard pan layer that, if it builds up over time, will deter water/oxygen movement leading to problems later on.

Crop protection discs

You will have noticed that many tillers have a round metal disc (see the photo of the Honda F220 tiller as an example) on the outside of the paddles. These discs are designed to cut the soil close to the rows and shield the plant so that it is not damaged as you pass by.

Measure the distance apart that these discs are, give yourself a little extra room for the vegetable plants to develop and you will be able to pass intra-row very quickly and freshen the soil. This takes care of new weed growth in one foul swoop; leaving you to just hand weed amongst your plants.

View all of the Mowdirect rotovators and tillers here

Comments

[frank ashford]

I have a Husqusvarna 300 rotavator, great old thing nice and heavy, do loads of work but now needs new blades with outer discs, any chance I can get these, appreciate your help