I know that feeling. I garden on clay. Could use a rotavator, i know I thought about using one years ago. But instead I double dug my whole garden - on my own. Mad or what!! But after years of hard work and lots of manure, compost and leaf mould my soil is lovely. I use raised beds in my garden. Check out the hire shops for prices and good luck. Do a little at a time, less daughting!! Hope you've got someone to help you.

Thanks - unfortunately I can't rely on husband - he's decided that i'm mad and i'm on my own! Also unfortunatley I'm not the most patient of people hence the rotivator! I will definitely be checking out the hire shops!!

As we are on clay soil as well we killed off the grass with weed killer and put in a couple of raised beds for our veg. Worked well last year. I've read that if grass is rotavated you end up chopping all the roots into bits and create more of a problem. Theres probably an answer to that here somewhere. If you do rotavate you will need to add to the soil with compost etc to improve it, or it will bake hard and/or be waterlogged and your veg won't thrive.