My yard is a raging mess of weeds. My expensive lawn has gone to seed due to my inability to maintain a mowing schedule. I’m thinking of tearing it out and putting in drought tolerant landscaping (i.e., a vast desert of decomposed granite).
My soil is adobe clay. When it dries out, it is like cement, or at least like sun dried bricks that one would build a mission out of. When I trenched to bury my utility lines, the laborers had to use a jack hammer to break it up.
I want to buy a rototiller and was wondering if anyone could make a recommendation. I’m looking at spending $500. I have my eye on this one from Sears:
If the link doesn’t work, it’s a Sears item #07129602000 Mfr. model #29602.
The website description is:
Powered by a Powerful 6 HP Briggs & Stratton Intek engine. The 12" counter rotating tines breaks up the soil in one pass. The controls are located on the handle for easy use. 14" tilling path.
* 6 hp Briggs & Stratton engine
* 12 in. counter-rotating tines (heat treated) 14 in. tilling path
* Pneumatic lug type tires
* EZ adjustable handle (no tools)
* Adjustable side panels
What should I look out for and is this a good choice? Thanks in advance.
I don’t know how big an area you have, but this little gem does an amazing amount of work. It’s not a backbreaker and it can actually be operated w/ one hand. It also has a number of optional attachments that can extend it’s use to other applications. I’ve had mine for 8-9 years and I love it.
Even if you think it’s too small for your area, you could always rent a larger tiller for an initial pass and then finish up w/ the Mantis, but I’d bet this little machine can do the whole job. http://mantis.com/home.asp
Mmmm…I have a mantis-like tiller, and I wouldn’t use it to tear up a yard. It’s good for gardens, particularly previously tilled gardens, but you wouldn’t mistake it for a serious rototiller.
I don’t know what the cost-benefit ratio is for buying a rototiller for a one-time job as opposed to renting one for a long weekend of lawn munging. Then again, if you’re just going to be putting down gravel on the lawn, I wouldn’t even bother tilling. I’d just cover the lawn with black plastic until everything was scorched earth, then call in the dump trucks.
Adobe? A Mantis? You guys have never delt with adobe I see. Take you mantis out and try tilling through the concrete sidewalk in front of your house. This will give you a pretty good idea of dry adobe.
Back to the OP. I have always heard that Troy-Bilt makes the about the best tiller out there.
Pull the weeds or use a nasty chemicle to kill them. Disturbing some soil “may” only invite a host of “worse” weeds to move right on it. Thats what happened here, might happen there. Look up “Russian Thistle”, halagetin (spelled wrong, to be sure), chico and puncture vine.
Second reason is that pulling weeds is free. Rototillers are expensive and don’t really prevent weeds.
Third reason is that if your “clay” is anything like my “clay”, nothing short of a backhoe, tractor or jackhammer with do anything but raise a little dust and wear out your upperbody for a few days. And fill your shoes with dirt.
Mantis? Absolute joke. Might work in Arkansas, but forget about the rest of the hard, sun-baked, zero-humidity and rocky rest of the world. My wife says throw down multch, like hay, straw or pine needles to prevent the weeds from popping up. Or get goats. They eat it before it can grow.
Briggs & Stratton makes a good product. Make sure and get extra shear pins, as you’ll surely need one 20 minutes before the hardware store closes when you live 30 minutes away. Good luck with the clay, I’d say Rick’s concrete comparison is pretty darn good.
Heh. Pretty broad spectrum of answers, from a Mantis to a backhoe. Let me clarify a few things. The soil, while having considerable clay content, is penetrable after a heavy rain. The jackhammer was necessary because it was during the summer and we had to go something like 6 feet down to legally run the electrical. I suspect that the problem may be more of gunking up on the tines, than anything else.
I’m forming a rototiller cooperative with 2 of my friends, so our cash outlay will only be $200 apiece. I suspect that renting a rototiller will probably cost this much, plus I don’t much care for the local rental companies.
Part of the problem with dumping decomposed granite all over the place is that I need to level the grade. I was planning on removing 6 inches of soil, put down a weed barrier and then the sand, gravel and decomposed granite deal.
I formed a chipper/vac co-op with some friends, which mostly worked, but the thing we ran into is that, in my neck of the woods at least, many tasks are very weather/season dependent, and everyone tended to want the chipper/vac at the same time during a few short weeks, and then it sat idle the rest of the time.
You truly might be better off renting. No worries about who’s responsible for maintanance (or did so-and-so “break” it or was it normal wear-and-tear), who stores it, etc. – especially for a piece of equipment you might not need year after year. Once you get your granite lawn installed, you’ll be using Round-up more often than a rototiller.
