Fixing Ruts with Garden Tiller

Does anyone have experience using a garden tiller to smooth out tractor ruts?

Earlier this year, I bought 11 acres of abandoned property to grow fruit trees on. At one point, the property was used for agriculture and there are numerous tractor ruts that are about a chainsaw deep on the property. See attached image. These ruts are big enough that my old walk-behind brush cutter gets caught up in them, and eventually I’ll probably end up using a riding mower on the property. The property hasn’t been farmed in at least two decades, so the ruts are not going to go away on their own anytime soon.

Most of the information I found for smoothing tractor ruts involves using a tractor to disk the ruts or use a box blade on them, but I do not have a tractor and am limited to transporting relatively things (e.g., under 500lbs). The consensus in this thread (https://permies.com/t/219806/Grading-wheel-tractor) seemed to be that a tractor of substantial heft is needed to fix ruts. Filling in the ruts would be a good option, but access roads to the property are not that good right now, so getting a truckload of soil dumped on the property is not viable option for at least the next year or so.

So, that leads me to the idea of using a garden tiller to smooth out the ruts. I don’t need the property to be perfectly flat, I just need it flat enough so that wheeled things don’t get stuck. It looks like I can get a relatively decent used garden tiller on Facebook Marketplace for about $150 (and can probably sell it for about the same after I’m done with it). See attached image. Has anyone tried doing something like this, and if so, what have been your results?

I would be worried that that thing doesn't have enough "umph" to do what you need to do. It might though! You know the condition of the soil obviously. Look up a Troy Bilt Horse tiller. (That's just what I have) I feel like mine might be able to do what you need. It's a monster. I got it for free and spent $50 getting it running again and I never use it....

Send a truck my way and I will give it to you!

I also would suggest renting a machine for a day and having it delivered. Not a tiller but like a small tractor.

I think that a rototiller will help a great deal. Perfect tool for chewing up the sides of the ruts.

As Dan suggests, renting a big rear-tine tiller might be faster (wider tines and more power), but I think you'll be able to do a lot with the one pictured.

A rototiller is a great labour saver (and back saver) when landscaping.

I have even used it in unconventional ways (shocking!) like levelling sloping walking paths or chewing up icy paths in winter.

Thanks for the suggestions, it sounds like there's a chance that tiller might be able to do the job. At the very least, if it doesn't I won't be out much time/money.

Eventually, I probably will end up getting some kind of tractor for the property. At least for now, it's just finances that that are the limiting factor. I have looked into renting, but in many/most situations it seems like the price of something older -- but well-maintained -- is on par with the cost of renting something on just two or three separate weekends.

Thanks for the offer Dan. If I wasn't 1,700 miles away I would totally take you up on it.

There is a furrowing/hiller attachment for the TroyBilt tiller which could be used to incrementally move some soil aside as you go.
The Gravely two-wheel tractor has a rotary plow attachment which would probably work best.
In both cases you might need to make multiple passes, first to break down the shoulders of the ruts and push to the center, then another wider pass to smooth out the cuts you just made.

You might inquire at rental centers about their weekend rental policies, especially Sundays. Taylor Rental will do a one-day Sunday rental, but the drop off is at end of business on Saturday and the pickup is start of business on Monday. For bonus points, Monday holidays they are closed, so pickup is delayed and they don't charge for the "extra day"! Done many a holiday weekend rental... got a lot done on a Saturday evening, and a lot of times they arrived to pick up a warm machine on Monday morning.
Now, some places will charge the holiday as a second day, some places might also monitor the hour meter on the machine such that 8 hours id a "day" or 40 hours is a "week".