When I started gardening I always got stuck at the beginning of every gardening season waiting for my friend to get out his rototiller and let me borrow it. In my mind, you couldn’t and shouldn’t ...

The big thing to do right now is to clean up your plants as they die down and dry up. Some people like to rototill the debris back into the soil to provide organic matter to enrich it for next year.

Q. I've had success in the past rototilling my vegetable garden, but now I hear it's not such a good idea. Can you advise me? A. Undisturbed soil teems with microorganisms and larger creatures such as ...

So retire your rototiller and save your spade for other tasks. The cardinal rule of no-till gardening is to keep a thick layer of mulch on your garden 365 days (or 366 days during a Leap Year).

Lori C. of Santa Rosa asks: I would like to plant a ground cover under a few of my trees for added color. Is it OK to rototill the soil around the trees to loosen up the soil to make it easier for me ...

A common misuse of rototiller is overtilling. Numerous passes with the machine makes the soil too fine and uniform. Finely ground may work for your coffee, but as for your garden soil, small ...

Two of the most common earthworms found in our area are redworms and nightcrawlers. Redworms (eisenia foetida, also known as red wiggler worms) are shallow dwellers, living in the top 12 inches of the ...

Richard Plucker's love affair with gardening has gone on for 70 years. I, on the other hand, have trouble keeping flowers alive in a vase for more than three days. So when Richard emailed me about two ...

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Gina and Regan Leon loved their Bethany home, but hated to spend time in their cramped back yard. Surrounded by tall houses, they felt like inhabitants of a fish bowl whenever they ventured into it.