OK... tell me all about rotavators (will be used on my 100m2 veggie patch)

I'm in the NO ROTO camp.   If you imagine the rotovator blades wizzing round, they describe a circle and the bottom of the circle will form a straight line as the rotovator moves through the ground.

This line will be polished by the blades and form a slick surface away from human eyes under the frothed up top section.   The roots of plants will find it difficult to work theur way through this "Hard pan" and will restrict their search for food and moisture.

I would suggest you double dig initially and dig in as much 'muck' as you can find.   In future years you can resort to the rotovator but get the initial ground work done first.

Cheers,     Tony.

Weakling females should never dig up nettle roots!. Aquire some glyphosphate, (Round Up), batter the nettles a bit and spray them every fortnight until they die. Worry about a rotovator when all the nettles have gone.

Oh, I have no problems with the digging Fen, but a lot of my garden is heavy clay, so even with a fork I struggle to get a fine enough tilth to plany anything smaller than fairly robust tomatoes, courgettes etc.

The majority of the nettle roots are limited to one or two areas, as I completely dug out the top two areas on the photo three years ago, and it was well mulched with  wood chip.

Having said that I'm now tackling the trees along the borders, so I'm going to have to wait for the rotovating until I get the tree debris cleared away.

For the remaining nettles I have some triclopyr, though I do probably have some glyphosate buried at the back of the cupboard somewhere

Are Mantis Tillers recommended... it is the one I keep coming back to

I have a Mantis ,bought it 4 months ago .Must admit it is very easy to use does a get job light weight and with the handles folding becomes easy to store.I bought it originally to weed between the rows of Veg but it does dig quite well .Not quite like the heavy 6.5 HP machines and it will never replace a spade but it is worth its weight in gold.