Garden Tiller

[christian1971]

Any recommendations for a rear garden tiller? We have heavy dense soil.

[RickyD]

A free one A friend had a 20 year old Tory built, 5Hp collecting dust. Works great and I like it better than a larger front tine I had years ago. I have very dense clay soil. Just got a 1 wheel Plow Hoss for the rows. Good luck.

[Worth1]

How big is the garden?
Worth

[wildcat62]

Troy Built tillers are hard to beat & I've got a small Honda that is great machine.

[meandtk]

If you can get a Troybilt from the 1980s, that would be best. They often ask a high price for them.
I would love to get a BCS.

[PhilaGardener]

BCS tillers are well built!

[Fusion_power]

First decide how much tiller you need. Cultivating 2000 square feet or more pretty much means you need an 8 horse power tiller. Less than 2000 square feet and you might get by with a smaller machine.

Troybilt horse tillers are common on Craigslist, especially this time of year. Most are seriously overpriced. Do not buy one of the older 1970's models, they are geared in a way that makes them difficult to control. The 1980's to mid 1990's tillers are excellent machines. Decide if you want one with electric start. I like electric start but can easily crank one manually. Your body size is actually important when answering this question. If you weight less than a muscular @150 pounds, manually cranking an 8 HP engine can be a struggle.

Price for a Troybilt of the correct model will vary quite a bit. Expect to pay at least $400 and at most $700 for a manual start. Add $200 for an electric start. Don't buy junk. If it looks worn out, wait for a good one. I saw an excellent manual start Troybilt near Minneapolis for $500 about 5 months ago. There is an excellent electric start in Cedar Rapids at $950. Get that down to $800 and it would be a tiller to last for 20 or more years.

https://cedarrapids.craigslist.org/grd/5488295907.html

Here is a custom search string you can click for your area.

https://minneapolis.craigslist.org/s...-bronco+-econo

[Ed of Somis]

A key ingredient of your question is "heavy dense soil". Clay soil is excellent for growing...as long as it is moist. Once it dries it gets like concrete! That being said...it would be easy for most folks with clay soil to go too light on a tiller. There are some good suggestions above. If it is important to you, and you will definitely use it...spend a bit more and go quality. I have never been sorry I spent more money and got a quality machine. The reverse is not true.

[Rajun Gardener]

Worth is right about the size of the garden, there's some nice high dollar tillers out there. I would agree with RickyD and suggest trying to find a used old Troybilt from Craigslist. Even if you have to drive a few hours to get it. The newer tillers are made cheap and cost too much in my opinion. I have a 74 Troybilt Pony I bought off of CL and love it. I did have to replace the engine after 1 season but $275 for the engine was cheaper than 2K for a new one. All parts are still available and this thing is a workhorse. I garden 3/4 of an acre and it makes easy work of making a 100' row and usually after the 3rd pass on new ground I can walk beside it and guide it with 1 hand. I will say the biggest thing is make sure you get one that pulls itself, it's like a mini tractor, they are called 2 wheeled tractors and it makes all the difference. There's no fighting it and getting dragged around trying to catch it. An old Gravley will work too but they are hard to find. The best selling models now are BCS and Grillo, they come with attachments and you can also make an attachment to fit your needs. Check out some of the youtubes from other countries using them and you'll see how versatile they are, they make tools to do everything gardening/farming. I've seen some laying plastic mulch, hilling, middle buster/digging potatoes and cultivating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nsEiSQcEd4

[Worth1]

If you have a garden with a fence watch out.
If you want to just till I highly suggest you get a dual rotating tine tiller.

With the tines turning backwards from the direction of the wheels it will really dig in unless it is full of rocks.
Withe the tines rotating forward it really busts up the clods and makes the garden as smooth as glass.
When you have the tillers tines rotating forward you need to put the spike down or it will take off on you.
I just looked at a test on the BCS tiller.
It only has forward rotating tines.
They tried to prepare a garden that hasn't been used in 20 years and it didnt do worth a hoot.
They had to put another attachment on it to bust up the soil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdYlj2iPUiE

[Worth1]

My tiller is a Sears Dual rotating rear tine 8.5 horsepower tiller.
They dont make it anymore now that have a 208 cc which I think is 6.5 horse power.
I can dig a whole from here to China with it in hard clay soil.
Worth

[Rajun Gardener]

WOW, all these responses.
Fusion, what's wrong with the 70's model? Mine works just like this and 3 or 4 passes make it so soft and fluffy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-lpsHjQmwo

Worth, 1st let me say you're the man growing already, I like your style. That vid is wrong in so many ways, we all know 2 passes on fresh ground with weeds/grass will not work. You have to put in some handlebar time, make at least enough passes to break it down especially in a weeds/grass filled area. I usually till fresh broken ground 4-5 times with at least a week in between just to make sure the grass and new weeds seeds you brought up are dead. And the biggest thing about tilling is soil moisture===all the difference.

[Cole_Robbie]

If you paid somebody with a tractor to till it once in the spring, and then you mulched extensively, you wouldn't need a tiller.

[BackyardFarm]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

If you paid somebody with a tractor to till it once in the spring, and then you mulched extensively, you wouldn't need a tiller.

^^ This is what I would say too. Plus the mulch will break down and add some fluff to your soil. Maybe you can even find someone who will trade tomatoes or a couple loaves of homemade bread and jars of jam for tilling. That's what I do!

[Fusion_power]

Rajun, the 70's models are geared in a way that can be difficult for a lighter weight person to handle. I have 3 Troybilt tillers one of which is a 1970's model. My son had a lot of trouble handling it. At the time, he weighed about 130 pounds. He could easily manage the later machines with appropriate speed selected.

I have 3 Troybilt tillers and one Tillsmith front tine. One of the Troybilt's is the older 1970's manual start model mentioned. One is an early 1990's with a Kohler 8hp electric start. One is a 1992 electric start that I have used heavily and put a new industrial Briggs engine on early last year. I paid $150 for the 1970's tiller, $250 for the 1990's Kohler, and $400 for the 1992 tiller. The 1990's Kohler needed $200 of repair to make it a usable tiller so I actually have about $450 tied up in it. All of my tillers are ready to hit the garden this year and no lolly-gagging around allowed.

The Tillsmith tiller is a very hard to find machine. If you know what to look for, you can sometimes luck up on a rebranded Tillsmith for $50. I was given an old tillsmith about 20 years ago by a friend. Since then, I replaced the engine for $185 and worked on the tines a bit. It is the sturdiest constructed front tine tiller around with a cast iron gearbox and shaft drive. There was a model that had double-tines meaning that instead of 4 tines to a bar, there were 8. The normal configuration used 32 tines to till. It is a mean green tilling machine!

Worth, I've had several of the dual rotating Craftsman tillers over the years. The last decent tiller sold by Craftsman was in 1966 when Tillsmith went out of business. I don't say this lightly, I've owned a dozen tillers in the last 25 years. Only Tillsmith and Troybilt Horse tillers have stood up to the brutal job of tending an acre of garden yearly.