Rototilling

One of the best investments we've made since we moved to Saint-Aignan is the machine in the picture below. Without it, we wouldn't have much of a vegetable garden. The first year, we starting digging up the ground and turning over big clumps of heavy clay soil using a shovel. Then we got a clue.

You fold the front wheel up and out of the way. Then
the blades or tines dig into the ground you want to till.

And a rototiller or motobineuse. It's a rotary hoe with an engine. Here's what the Wikipedia article on cultivators says, in part, about tilling soil with such an engin.

Rototilling is much faster than manual tilling, but [the tilling machine is] notoriously difficult to handle and [tilling the soil with it is] exhausting work, especially in the heavier and higher horsepower models. If the rototiller's blades catch on unseen subsurface objects, such as tree roots and buried garbage, it can cause the rototiller to abruptly and violently move in any direction.

It's a 5.5 HP Staub tiller with a Briggs & Stratton engine.
It has a reverse gear, which makes it easier to maneuver.

To me, tilling with the machine is not nearly as back-breaking as digging in hard soil with a shovel and hoe. Or a pickaxe. With the rotary cultivator, I can work the soil in our medium-size vegetable garden a couple of times in the spring, before we plant, and, if the weather allows, once in the fall, after we've pulled out the plants.

Our vegetable garden covers just over
80 square meters (900 sq. ft.) in all.

Yesterday I did an initial tilling of two of our four main garden plots. I was glad that the tiller's motor started right up when I pulled it out of the garden shed and put some gas in the tank. This is its 8th or 9th year of service, but since I only use it for, say, 10 or 12 hours a year, it seems to be holding up pretty well.