New Tiller

sj2007

19 years ago

I have been reading a lot of information on this forum and elsewhere about tiller advice, and wanted to get some recommendations. I bought my first house last summer, and have about 5,000-6,000 sq ft of grass. I want to tear most of it out (or reseed it because it is probably 75% weeds and moss anyways) and is full of moles (which is a separate battle). I want to till most of the yard to remove the grass and do various landscaping updates (including installing a ~600 sq ft garden), but will probably do it in 3 phases (due to money). My questions are these:

1) The soil does not appear to rocky but is fairly compact. There is lots of mature trees and bushes in the yard, and I am concerned there may be some large roots. Would it make sense to buy a rear tine tiller for tilling the yard and then use it on the garden? Or is there a good risk of damaging it in untilled soil?

2)If buying a tiller for the whole yard, what brands of rear or mid tine tiller would you recommend (I have heard lots of bad things about new Troy-bilts and Craftsman, so I have looked a lot at Honda, but don't hear much about them)?

3) Would it make sense to rent a 16 hp Barreto tiller for $100 a day to till all the grass areas first, and buy a smaller tiller for the garden?

Thanks.

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Comments (10)

bill_kapaun
19 years ago
If you have the room, hire someone with a tractor. You'll work yourself to death tilling that much by hand.

"1) The soil does not appear to rocky but is fairly compact."
I'm about 70 miles south of you and my "compact" soil is pretty heavy clay. You might be better off removing the top 4-6" and replacing with good top soil, if you want a really nice lawn.
Else, you might want to get a gallon of Weed B Gone and a ton of lime.
canguy
19 years ago
What bill said. You will take a beating especially if you hit a root with a high speed rear tine. I learned that the painful way
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wankel
19 years ago
Ditto on the opinions just given. I just tilled a smallish garden today and it feels like I'm about 5 minutes short of a Reynaud's Syndrome attack...
fcivish
19 years ago
Ah, but you can't just hire a tractor to come in, if you have a sprinkler system. What do you recommend then?
maineman
19 years ago
sj2007 didn't say anything about having a sprinkler system.

MM
sj2007
Original Author
19 years ago
Nope, no sprinkler system. But access for a tractor isn't ideal unless it was a fairly small tractor. I am going to search and see what people are offering around here in terms of tractor tilling. Thanks for the advice so far.
bill_kapaun
19 years ago
You might check out CL. Here's an example-
http://corvallis.craigslist.org/grd/347434713.html
milo2000
18 years ago
The Barreto won't beat you to death if it hits roots it will either cut through or bog the engine to a stall if the hydraulics are pushed to far. That would be alot of work but you can find used Barretos under $2k that you could use at your leisure and it will do the job and will last. Most anything else will fall apart.
peterc38
18 years ago
I'd find someone local with a compact tractor to till it or maybe use a harley rake, this provides a great seed bed for grass seed. A lot of compacts have a small enough footprint for your application.

Then I would look on craigslist for a used troy-bilt pony or horse for your yearly garden chores. You can fine something nice in the $400-$600 range.
yungman
18 years ago
6000 to 8000 sqft is not that big!!! He is doing this as one time thing and if he till it again, it will be a lot easier.

I did my own tilling on my back and side yard which is about 2000 to 3000 sqft. I bought a Poulan 550 front tine tiller from Amazon for $299 including shipping last year. Took me 3 two hours days to do it. From now on, only take me three hours to redo the whole thing.

My point is if you are doing your own yard only, spending a lot of money to buy a rear tine tiller not only cost a lot, later if you have to store the tiller, it is a lot bigger to store. You rent one, would cost you quite a bit of money and you are obligated to finish in one day and that is going to be hard.

If you are planning to use it again and again, the small front tine tiller in Sears usually have it on sale for $329 or so, that is the same one as mine. Cheap, it works very well.....For home owner, I think it will last a long time. We cannot make up own mind what to do with the yard, so I just keep tilling every half a year to get rit of the weeds.

If you are a pro, then it is a different story, front tine will not do.