PATIENT21
welcome to garden web! Personally I have never rototilled or plowed but then I don't have lots of land that needs to be tilled or plowed. I mostly just have flower beds with a few veggies here and there but because our soil is so heavy and packed I use the lasagna method to lighten up my beds....no digging, no tilling, no plowing... just piling layers of material (newspaper, peat, compost, leaves, etc.) on top of the area that you want to plant in and then plant.

Penny

Rototilling sod would be very difficult. Using a plow would seem too much brute force. The plow would break up the sod, but then big chunks would still be in your garden that you would have to pick out anyways, before they start growing again.
I've done it 2 ways. If you have the time, I put an old carpet on the soil. After 2 or 3 months all the grass, etc. has died. It's a piece of cake to rototill at this point. I get the carpet free from the local carpet stores bins . They said help yourself. Now I just move the carpet every year to my new beds.
I've also mowed really close to the ground, then used roundup for 2 or 3 weeks in a row. Then rototill that. The roots are still pretty thick, but they will break up easier than living sod. The carpet way takes a little more time, but the ground usually gets really soft from the carpet keeping in the moisture.
I considered a plow, but it doesn't practical for other than farming row crops.

You may want to consider paying someone with a 3 point hitch rototiller to do that work for you .In my area of NY there is a free newspaper that gets jammed in my mailbox every weekend people who do this sort of work advertise every spring.If you went the plow route you would need either discs for the machine to finish or a rototiller and a lot of hard work.In my opinion even if the work cost a hundred bucks you are not buying and maintaining a expensive piece of equiptment.Hope this helps. Rob

The best way to get sod up is to use a sod cutter. If it's some other kind of ground cover I would mow it down to the nub and then use the sod cutter. You can probably rent one at your local hardware store. I agree with trying to kill it off first (carpet idea), but I'm not one for chemicals.

Sara

Every spring, there are folks who advertise locally who do roto tilling for a reasonable price, starting around $20. We had a guy do a large part of our backyard last year for $35. Better than buying the equipment myself.