Need advice on Rototillers
 

Thinking about this one eventually....

http://www.hondapowerequipment.com/M...delName=frc800

Thoughts?

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

How much tilling are you planning to do?

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

I would like it to be able to handle up to an acre. Plus there is a lot of rocky soil here in the PNW.

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

I would avoid it personally......the chain drive would turn me off.

I had an Ariens rear tine for about 30 years, built much like a Troy built, with a gear transmission.....very tough tiller. It finally got to the age I thought I should replace it, and I only seriously considered the european type 'walking tractors'......BCS, Grillo, etc. These things are built like a TANK......no doubt in my mind this is my last tiller.

These type tillers have several advantages also in that you can mount a variety of implements on them. I got a "rotary plow" with mine as well as tiller tines. You remove the tine attachment and bolt up the plow.....it is basically a post hole digger/auger that is mounted in place of the rear tiller, sits vertical at about a 15 degree tilt to one side. You plow down a strip of undisturbed ground, it digs in 10-15", and throws the dirt to one side.....repeated passes in the same direction will mound up a "hill" ....or you can just flat loosen up the ground. It would take a tiller 4-5 passes to loosen up what this will in one.

You can get sickle bar mowers, brush mowers, and a whole bunch more for these type tractors.

I also got a an air cooled diesel on mine....but Honda engines are also one of the choices.

The G85 Grillo with a 22" tine attachment and 9hp Honda is about FRN 2225, right at the same price you are looking for the "no name" brand you mentioned......and I'd guarantee it will out last that one 10 to 1.

http://www.earthtoolsbcs.com/index.htmlhttp://www.earthtoolsbcs.com/index.html

http://www.earthtoolsbcs.com/assets/...grilloG107.jpg

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

I've got a Honda lawnmower that's been passed around between a couple people, who knows how many years old it is and hasn't recieved much maintenance. Then I let it sit in my shed a few months before filling it with gas and giving the cord a rip. It bucked, snorted and spewed out a cloud of thick black smoke. After some carb cleaner and replacing some missing parts on the handle it mowed down 4ft weeds over an acre of my property with a dull blade. While the quality of manufactured goods has plummeted in recent decades Honda seems to know how to make small engines.

My first reaction was the same as GPond's. An acre of rocky soil can be done with hand tools over the space of a couple weeks without too much trouble if you're in decent shape. Not sure what that rototiller is going to do with your rocks, but personally I'd get a garden cart and a pitchfork, pull the rocks and either make some drains or put them to some other use. Then you'll have an easier time working your soil later on no matter what method you choose. In a place like the PNW you might get stones surfacing every year from frost heave, but with luck it should be easy to manage.

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

Andy's right--BCS and Grillo are the premier tillers and are built for hard work. I've been thinking about a little land and a small 5 acre production of wheat or veggies or corn and a big tractor would make no sense.

BCS has hay mowers and bailer attachments. Heavy cutting and lawn mowing attachments as well as furrowing and tilling attachments. and more.

This will not come cheap but the are commercial equipment (the bigger ones) could be run 12 hrs a day five days a week.

Rear tine is a must.

Electric-Amish

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

have a problem with rocks on my property most about the size of a baseball
the rototiller just kicks them out and i pick them out of the top of the soil
I just have some old roto tiller had a 5 horse briggs on it which worked great for a year but i have since replaced motor.I like things that are easily
adaptable to different motors parts etc so i would probably find another
old unit with a briggs on it most people probably would give them away.
I try to use briggs motors for everything i can due to parts compatability
IE i only have to stock repair parts for 1 or 2 different types of motors
if something breaks i can probably steal parts from something less important
and once you learn to repair them they are all pretty similar.

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

Small diesel? Now there's an idea.

I can vouch for the Troy and the BCS. Both are fine. Although the BCS is better, it's also 2x? 3x? the price. Sicklebar is not worth the money on them, but the tiller you can let go and pick up at the end of the row.

For the money, you should do this:

http://www.farmerbrownsplowshop.bigs...generic59.html

Get a Planet Jr, or as many as you can find, and I'll tell you why. The tiller cannot plow, and so in certain areas the weeds are too strong to hold back in the spring. Tilling instead of plowing also hard-pans the soil at a certain level, while a plow goes deep and uneven preventing an impermiable water/root layer 8" down. That means you need a deep-plow tractor anyway, or raised beds, or permaculture, or some another plan. That leaves the tiller for bed prep and weed maintanence.

What they don't tell you is that the reason tilling works so well is that it hyper-oxygenates the soil. First few years things grow gangbusters. Then the soil is depleted and there's no remaining tilth. A Planet Jr takes no gas, costs 1/100th of a tiller, doesn't deplete the tilth, and is no harder to use since you have to walk up and down the rows anyway. If it's too clay/stoney to use, then you need to work on your composting, not your tilling.

Tillers have some great uses. However, I've found that for the money you can probably get a Ford 8N tractor that can plow, disk, till, shovel and pull. The money for a tiller would be better spend first delivering horse manure, then on greenhouse, wells, pumps, trees or chickens, perhaps. Then maybe a barn/root cellar. Only after all these things are done and you don't know what to do with your money could you fill that expensive niche of tiller-tractors.

Handwork is far, far superior than tractor work at every level. It's questionable if you'll get your money back compared to, say, a hoop greenhouse. It's far more effective to more intensively till a far smaller area by hand.

Believe me, you won't believe how easy it is to push a wheel-hoe up and down the rows like a dust mop every 5 days, with only the silence of the wind and birds, plenty of time to look at the plant's health and learn and remedy things.

Save your money for now.

TS

The simpler the better

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

Hey-

Gold star goes to Simpleton,IMHO.

I'll go one step further. Containers for gardening are EVERYWHERE, and usually free. You can put your efforts into a small area, and then keep it that way on the cheap. The grains are for industial large scale factory farms and are immensly energy-intensive.

Think charcoal for loosening tight soils and water retention in permacultural and raised bed/container apps.

Just me though.

Volzka

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

Those Planet Jr-type cultivators are looking pretty sweet to me, thanks for posting the info! Do you know any good sites off the top of your head to learn more about how they work and what you can do with them?

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

Sorry, no. I've been in and out of farms and farming country all my life, and I never saw a soul using them. It was ruining a good garden with over-tilling (and the work to recover it) that led me to try something simpler and quieter. Isn't that what gardening is supposed to be like?

I bet there would be old-timer manuals and so on once you know what to look for. It's perfectly easy however, and it's in "New Organic Grower" by Elliot Coleman. Weed seeds are too small to see, generally. After they germinate, they grow out mostly invisible to the eye and it takes about 5 days for them to be small visible plants as we know them. Therefore, tilling the bare soil every 5 days before their visible tears their microscopic root system and sets them back, mostly killing them. This can be done with a tiller or by hand, but it best done with a stirrup hoe, or what is far better, the two solid horizontal hoes on the old-time Planet. They flip up 2 cm of soil like a wave and require no back-and-forth. They will never wear out unlike the razor loops and pnumatic tires of the new styles (like at Johnny's Seeds). So you walk up the row like a push broom and never see weeds, while conserving the root structure and water of your crop.

I don't know how far south this would work, as with enough heat the plants germinate faster and survive the tilling better. The deep claws seem unnecessary, but perhaps I haven't discovered the use for them. They would permit more water in, but also let more water out. Worse, they snag on rocks and stop the fluid forward motion. I'd rather have 5 men and $50 Planets then 1 man and a $5000 tractor/cultivator.

There are other tricks in Coleman's books, but he is a cold-weather oriented. Perhaps seeing the way to look at things could open your eyes to potentials in any area though.

The single most important thing I've seen after fooling with all sorts of gardens and fields is the now-deceased word "tilth". Work on the compost, structure, balance, and life of your soil and everything will be easy. It's lighting a candle. Focus on killing bugs, critters and weeds and your life will be hard. That's cursing the darkness. Use things to their purpose and don't carry the load on your won shoulders. Nature wants to grow! Guide it.

TS

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

I agree completely. I see it as the difference between working with nature or trying to fight nature, and we all know who bats last. My philosophy is that if it isn't easy, productive and simple then I'm not doing it right.

I've been reading up on "wheel hoes" today, no particular site seems to have a particularly large repository of knowledge but these things are remarkably versatile. Since the hoe part is actually a removable tool there are all manner of other atachments from small ploughs to wheels arranged so they angle towards eachother in the back to hill dirt in rows for you. I don't know how these things would do on breaking ground, which I can do with a shovel and a fork anyway, but they'd be the cat's meow for well established plots of soil. There are several versions of the concept still in production and if I don't buy one I'll at least try my hand at making one. Most of the posts from people who use these regularly that I have read stated that they rarely need to use their rototiller and when it comes to weeding and such they can get much closer to their crops without damaging them with their wheel hoe than they every could with the tiller.

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

And also put another way, where do you keep getting fuel after TSHTF?

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

Sombody posted this a few weeks ago a link to www.lehmans.com I
had a look there and found this http://www.lehmans.com/jump.jsp?item...rID=332&KICKER a high wheel cultivator.

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

Imported... Translation: MADE IN CHINA for around $10... sell to American goyim for $99.

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

:D I own two diesel tractors around 30 hp with every implement you can imagine.

A couple good passes with cultivators followed by a rock rake will fix you up.

Even though I own backhoes,excavators,and dozers I would not buy a tiller for gardening an acre.

Get yourself about four dozen RR cross ties and build a raised bed garden.
It is ten times easier to build it from scratch and just fill with lots of topsoil and peat moss to keep the soil loose year round.
Yields are twice as good as an open garden spot and you can control how rich your soil is much easier.
The good part is it never washes away or depletes in volume because you have a captive,controlled area.

Gave up plowing and built one about ten years ago...it beat any open garden in yields hands down.

Mine is about a 75 X 50 rectangle laid out in a lengthwise grid divided into 4 ft sections....each section is 4 X 75...you can walk on the center ties between each section...makes separating different vegetables a breeze...they are isolated from each other.

I never looked back...these things will save you a ton of time and labor...and you don't even need a rototiller at all...never will.

BTW: It takes a lot of topsoil/dirt and compost to fill these things up...but once it's filled...it's there forever. A lot of work upfront...but no rototilling required...mine is so loose and rich I turn it over every spring with hand tools...takes about two lazy hours...and you're good to go.

:D :D :D :D

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

Are you concerned about the creasote in the RR ties leaching into the soil?

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

:cool2: No RMac....

It actually helps kill the outboard weeds around the perimeter for the first year...the leaching is almost a non issue.I thought the same thing when I first built it but I was surprised to find it didn't matter after a few hard rains and continuous baking in the sun.

I have planted everything right beside the ties and no problems ever occurred for the past ten years.

My wife loves it...she claimed a small section for extra flowers and they grow like weeds in such a rich environment.

I just rotate sections every year with different vegetables to avoid soil depletion...

:cool2: :cool2: :cool2:

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

Agreed. Mine was the large Troy, and I was tilling 1/3 acre. Tecumsah engine, rear tine. Finally sold it when I had no need for it.

That Grillo you have pictured is a fine piece.

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

This is my only option besides container gardening.

Forest property.

A chipper with a low RPM hi torque PTO for compost auger would be nice.

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

:bear_grin: Forgot an alternative...

My dad bought a Gravely and a David Bradley garden mule/cultivator back in the early 60's that are still packed away in the barn.

The David Bradley has a 8 hp Wisconsin-Robbins and the Gravely has a 10 hp Kohler...both still run as good as new.

These things have so much torque they will pull up small stumps and tow a small trailer...he bought turning plows,cultivators,disc harrows,rock rakes,and just about every attachment under the sun.

Might find an old one for peanuts...or maybe not...these old antiques are built like tanks and tend to last about a hundred years.

When I was a kid ( about 100 lbs )I could ride the attachments and steer the things all day.Almost fun if you like gardening.

Here's a photo...not 100% original like my dad's but it will do.




http://goldismoney.info/forums/attac...1&d=1170913078


Just another cheap alternative...something to consider.

:bear_grin: :bear_grin: :bear_grin:

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

Very interesting. I once saw a bulldog competition, real bulldogs not those halfbreed pug mixes the English call a bulldog. One of the events was a tractor pull, the dogs could pull 1700lbs loads, very impressive.

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

If the ground is very rocky. Hire someone for the first time with a tractor. Or rent.

Save your new tiller till most the rocks are gone. imho

Re: Need advice on Rototillers
 

Simpleton posts: "Tillers have some great uses. However, I've found that for the money you can probably get a Ford 8N tractor that can plow, disk, till, shovel and pull. The money for a tiller would be better spend first delivering horse manure, then on greenhouse, wells, pumps, trees or chickens, ..."

My area - west Montana - soil thin and lots of shale rock -
I picked up an old beater John Deere 1020 with live power takeoff and live hydraulics with a front end loader at a farm auction. Also bought a rear box scraper and a two bottom plow. Total price ~$2,000

Owned it two years in which time I moved probably near 200 yards of material. Dug a fishpond in my garden area and brought in topsoil that I scoured from between trees from all around. What was a thin topsoil ended up nearly two feet deep in my garden. Built a couple of driveway access paths around the buildings.

Sold the old beater with all of the attachments for about what I had in it and now do my garden work with a cheap rototiller. Once you break up the native soil with all the shale rock and brush roots and get it broke up and softened down to about a foot deep, working it then gets easy. -tilth - yes!

Carver