Urban agriculture has sprouted among residence of many towns in South Africa and Botswana due to economic and food security concerns by urban communities.A system is used where tractor operations are hired from nearby farmers and used to mange horticultural fields located in urban and peri-urban areas.This study was prompted by concerns that soil compaction in horticultural fields due to the use of conventional tillage practices with tractors was,not only limiting the performance of fruits and vegetables,but also affecting the quality of water resources due to erosion.Soil penetrometer resistance and bulk density were measured in the profiles of three fields (vegetable,orchard & vineyard) that were adjacent to each other but had used a similar tillage traffic system over the years for tractor traffic was used for seedbed preparation and weeding respectively in the vegetable and orchard fields while in an adjacent vineyard was not trafficked.Higher soil compaction was evident in the orchard and vegetable fields compared to the vineyard.The location of compacted layers within the profiles was related to the nature of tractor traffic applied.There was subsoil compaction in the orchard and vegetable fields while shallow compaction was observed in the vineyard.Apart from tractor traffic,low organic matter content and the hardsetting behavior of the soil could have exacerbated the compaction.It was concluded that tillage practices are diminishing the quality of soils used for horticulture production in urban areas in the study area.It was therefore recommended that controlled tillage and other management strategies,especially those that increase the organic matter content of the soils,be adopted that not only ameliorate the existing compaction,but also sustain the productivity of the soils used for urban agriculture.