A Tilling Weekend

The snow is gone and spring has arrived! The weather was beautiful this past weekend so my parents and I spent most of their visit working on my yard. The yard, like the rest of the property, has been neglected and was full of crab grass. The ground was so uneven that my push mower was very difficult to use. My yard isn't very large so I decided it would be best to reseed the whole yard. My boss lent me his tiller attachment to loosen up the soil. Now, don't let "attachment" fool you into thinking this is some light, easy to use machine. A normal tiller has wheels to push along the ground, but the attachment to a weed-eater motor means no wheels. You have to hold it the whole time, pull the trigger, and push it into the ground deep enough to get under the grass. My arms (forearms especially) were sore the next day (I'm making my way to madonna arms afterall). It's heavier than it looks, but it did the job:

My tips for tilling:
Be patient and take your time. I wanted to get the tilling done so instead of wearing my arms out too much, I rested some of the weight of the machine on my hip... it bruised.

Having help is also a great option. (Big Thanks to my dad who did a lot of the tilling).

If the yard is a decent size then rent a larger tiller.

There are a couple of spots that were really thick with crab grass and a larger tiller would have been helpful for that. So if the whole yard is really overgrown (even a small yard), rent the larger tiller.