I bought one of those lightweight electric cultivators. They describe them as 'tillers' so I call it 'The Hun'. It turns over only a few inches (I think it claims something like 8 inches maximum) so I'd be surprised if it's causing a lot of problems for things in the soil.

It went straight into my top three best gadgets ever and saves me so much effort.

No - if you chop a worm up, the bits don't regenerate into new worms. This time of year, unless your soil is bone dry, the worms will be in the top layer. The best time to use a rotavator from the worm point of view is winter, when its chilly, because the worms will be deeper in the soil and relatively inactive.

There are other drawbacks with these machines - they don't really go deep enough for proper digging, and they chop into tiny pieces any pernicious weed roots present in the soil, increasing the weed problem.

Agree with Bamboo this is not the time to be using a rotavator or tiller on the soil as it will certainly chop up anything living that is in the soil. All heavy digging needs to be done late winter, early spring before the soil warms up.

We had a big brute of a rotavator when we had the croft in Aberdeenshire and that certainly did a good job of digging, snag was it required so much muscle power only Bulba could use and I'm talking over 40 years ago! I personally don't think the light weight tillers do enough to justify their existence and don't clear any weeds just chop them up to become more of a problem.

Better to put some rich compost on the soil and let the worms do the tilling. It takes longer, but it is much better for the soil and its residents.

Agree Tugb!