Vegetable gardening can save money and provide high-quality produce for you to use. If you’re new to vegetable gardening, though, you might not know where to start or what tools you need.
Whether you’re starting a brand-new garden bed, reviving an old one, or carrying on with an inherited garden plot, you’ll need some way to work the soil. Though there are some no-till gardening methods, one of the easiest and most familiar ways to tend a garden involves using a tiller. You’ll want to get a reliable tiller, like the ones from Honda, so you can keep using it year after year.
You can use a tiller to break new ground for a planting bed or to work up the soil before planting in the spring. Spring tilling is especially important if you grew a cover crop over winter or didn’t till in the fall. Tilling gives you a chance to work in soil amendments like compost, which are essential for both new and established gardens. Tilling also loosens the soil so it is easier to plant.
Starting A New Garden
If you’re starting a new garden, select a spot with good drainage and plenty of sunlight. Most vegetables thrive in full sun (6-8 hours of sunlight each day), though there are options you can grow if you have a shady yard.
It’s a good idea to start small, particularly for your first vegetable garden. Starting with a small garden bed makes it easier to manage, and you can expand later if you want to. Take the time to do some research on which vegetables grow well in your climate and when to start planting in your area. Once you know which vegetables you want to grow, you’ll have an easier time laying out the garden.
Working New Ground
Before you can plant, you’ll need to clear the garden bed. Remove any weeds or grass in the area. You can do this in the spring right before planting, or in the fall so the soil can rest over the winter. The fastest way to remove grass and weeds is by manually digging. Other methods like smothering and solarization take more time, but they do kill the grass and weeds.
For this first till, it might be a good idea to rent a heavy-duty rear-tine tiller. These tillers are more powerful and can dig deeper into the soil than smaller tillers. They’re also more expensive and harder to store, so buying one likely isn’t practical for first-time gardeners or if you plan on a small to mid-sized garden. Renting one will make working garden soil for the first time much easier. Then, you can buy a cultivator or small tiller to help with weeding and to work the soil each year.
Once you’ve broken the soil up for your new garden bed, till in plenty of organic matter. Adding compost improves the texture of both sandy and clay soils. It also adds important nutrients to the soil.
When To Till
For established garden beds, you’ll want to work the soil early in the spring before you start planting the garden. For early cool season crops like lettuce and snap peas, planting will work best if you till the soil the previous year in the fall so you can plant early. You might want to set aside part of the garden for these crops so you can plant them early, then work the rest of the soil in the spring.
Soil that is too moist will just clump together when you’re tilling the garden. To test if the soil is dry enough for tilling, grab a handful of soil and squeeze it. If the soil crumbles when you let it go or when you poke it, it’s ready to till. If the clump of soil you picked up sticks together, wait until the soil is dryer. Soil should also be at least 60 degrees Fahrenheit before you start tilling.
Tillers for Small Gardens
For small gardens that measure about 1,000 square feet or less, all you’ll need to work the soil is a mini-tiller or cultivator like the Honda FG110 Tiller or Echo TC-210 Tiller. These small tillers are also useful for working in tight spaces around plants in larger gardens.
You can use mini cultivators for working up the soil in small garden beds, but it’ll save time if you use a larger tiller. Front-tine and mid-tine tillers are a good choice for small to medium-sized gardens. Some tillers let you change the tilling width, making it easy to switch between using them as a mini-cultivator and a mid-size tiller.
For a more versatile tool, consider investing in the STIHL Yard Boss multitool for your mini tiller. When you’re done tilling, you also have the option to use it as a lawn aerator, dethatcher, bed edger, trimmer, or bristle brush broom by using a variety of available attachments. You can also get cultivator attachments for the STIHL KombiSystem and Echo PAS multitools.
Tillers for Large Gardens
When you’re working with larger gardens, using a mid-size or a rear-tine tiller saves time. Mid-size tillers are less expensive and easier to store than rear-tine models, but if your garden is larger than about 10,000 square feet you might want to invest in a large tiller so you can work the garden more easily.
Two of the mid-size tillers offered by Richardson Saw and Lawnmower are the Honda F220 and Honda FC600. The F220 is adjustable for a 12-inch or 21-inch tilling width, making it useful for working a medium-sized garden in the spring and also for working in tight places later in the growing season. The FC600 has a 26.4-inch tilling width and tines with a 14-inch diameter so you can use it to work the soil deeply.
For large gardens, you’ll want a rear-tine tiller like the Honda FRC800. It has a 20-inch tilling width and tines with a 12-inch diameter. One of its biggest advantages for a large garden is that this tiller is self-propelled. It has three forward speeds, so you can choose one and walk at a comfortable pace that won’t tire you out as much as working with a smaller tiller.
For more information, check out our article “Buying Guide: Tillers and Cultivators for Home and Professional Use.” You can also contact us if you have any questions, and stop by to see the tillers we carry in person.
