Tiller reccomendations

Hey all,

After a very unsuccessful attempt at gardening last year due to heavily compacted soil (and inexperience), I've decided that as much as I'd like to go no-till from the start, I think I'm going to have to till if I'm going to have an in-ground garden. (Containers last year did so-so, but were not nearly as productive as I'd have liked.) I could hardly break through the turf and soil with a shovel, so starting with just broadforks isn't going to work. Even if I had the funds to set up a bunch of raised garden beds, that wouldn't help with the trees I'm planting/transplanting, so here we are. I don't really have the time to solarize a bunch of plots (and I have a pesky puppy that would think the plastic sheeting is a toy for him).

I figure if I get a tiller I can tear up the soil in a few places, work in some organic matter, get things going, and then be able to sheet mulch and work in other soil amendments, compost, etc, as needed using a broadfork from that point on, and only have to till in "virgin" spots.

Any recommendations for tillers to look into/avoid?

It sounds like you'd be better off renting a machine, at which point you sort of just take whatever they have and you don't have to care if it'll last.

100% rent a tiller. The bigger the better or else it beat you to death.

Christopher Weeks wrote:It sounds like you'd be better off renting a machine, at which point you sort of just take whatever they have and you don't have to care if it'll last.

I think I have a source I could rent a tiller from, but if that doesn't work out, then I'd have to buy one. I'm hoping to break ground in 3-4 weeks, since my bare root trees are coming in on the 15th. Based on the research I've done, rear tine is probably my best bet, since I don't plan on using it once I've got plants in the ground, and my spaces are all open enough to accommodate the size of a rear tine.

Joe Hallmark wrote:100% rent a tiller. The bigger the better or else it beat you to death.

Yeah, if my husband will go for that, I may go that route. There's a place about an hour away that should be able to rent me a 9 hp, rear tine tiller for about $120/ day, which is way cheaper than the $720+tax minimum I'm seeing at Tractor Supply.

I think Home Depot rents tillers as well as a lot of medium/small-town independent rental places (at least around where I live).

Christopher Weeks wrote:I think Home Depot rents tillers as well as a lot of medium/small-town independent rental places (at least around where I live).

I actually checked with the HD in my area and Lowes, and none of them rent tillers! I talked with my husband about renting a tiller, and he'd prefer we buy one, since we won't be bound by time restraints, and if we decide we don't need it after a few uses, we could sell it and recoup the money.

Ayva Jean Damas wrote:...
Any recommendations for tillers to look into/avoid?

All depending on the needs (we use ours for a ~60 X 60 ft garden; pretty heavy clay soil, but was cultivated farm field before we took over the land), I've been pretty happy with a rear-tine, belt-to-shaft drive walk-behind tiller.  We purchased it new 20 years ago for around $600 and it was made by Earthquake.  Now, Earthquake still exists, but I suspect has changed ownership several times and can't speak for their current offerings.  However, the Troybuilt Pony/Bronco series, some of which come down to ~$700 new (and popular enough to be found used for less) are nearly identical to the original Earthquake that we purchased....may even be a bit more rugged.  I like the fact that they don't use a chain drive, but rather transfer power through one forward and one reverse belt to a drive-shaft that powers both the tines and the wheels.  Currently, ours is without reverse because the little engine finally gave out and I had to swap out the engine with a budget brand lacking the reverse engine shaft.  I'm glad you brought up the broadfork idea, cuz a tiller like this won't give you much depth, but will be a much easier way to cultivate garden/plot-sized projects that can be followed with a broadfork for deep loosening.  Good luck!

In my area, there are plenty of guys who will bring in a 16-30HP tractor with a mondo rototiller and do a garden plot for a flat fee. They can go deeper than a hand tiller in tough conditions. Even though rototillers can add some problems over time (creating a hard pan, messing up soil layers and soil biota), I have used them successfully for the initial development of a garden.

Something more along the lines of a mechanical broadfork is also possible:

You might find a tractor guy with a simple 3-pt. hitch tine cultivator who can do a deep till that breaks up the subsoil to improve aeration, drainage, penetration of roots and to let amendments like compost work their way deeper into the subsoil. This aligns better with the permie soil-building philosophy, since it doesn't puree the soil layers.

A tractor or bobcat with forks on the front-end loader can also do a lot of work to break up clay at a deep level. The trick is to start at the far end and work backwards so that the weight of the machine doesn't re-compact the subsoil.

You can often get a decent working rear-time tiller on Facebook Marketplace for about the cost of renting one for a day or two.

Hello,

I have some experience with tillers. I have 2 recommendations & 1 put down. I'll start with the put down 1st. Stay completely away from mid-tine tillers! My experience has told me that they are crappy. Plus they do not do as good of job as the Front Tine or Rear Tine,  good example is a TroyBuilt,  tillers. A 60 X 60 is a fair piece of ground.

I personally have a Front tine tiller that used to be my parents. It can do a very fine job for you. With a big plot, the rear tine tillers are really great. They don't buck you around nearly as much. Another thought, especially for beginning gardens, is to hire someone to come plow & disc your plot. Then afterwards, run over it wit a Roto-Tiller to smooth out all the clods of Soil.

As with any No Till farming, the 1st year is extremely important. Prep your soil to the condition that is needed to maintain a no-till operation. By tilling up the ground, you also get the weeds growing so you know what & how you'll need to treat. From the sounds of it, you know how to do the remaining parts.

Good luck! 😊😊😊

Great discussions and recommendations here so far.  All I can add is my little bit of experience.

Almost 20 years ago (and well before I even heard about Permies, but I was loosely aware of No-Till), I started my present-day garden beds.  I started out by double-digging with a spade.  That proved to be absolutely back-breaking and was quickly a non-starter.  So my wife and I went to the local big box store and looked at tillers.  I really wanted a rear-tine tiller as I had borrowed one before and liked it, but I couldn't justify the cost.  I ended up buying the cheapest front-tine tiller with the thoughts that if I needed more down the road, I could upgrade.

That little tiller admirably tilled up four small to medium sized garden beds (about 6'x12').  Make no mistake, this was still back-breaking work, but the work was much faster than being done with a spade.  I did get some decent gardens that first year which I heavily amended with various organic material, especially leaves.  

After the first tilling, the most important use of the tiller was tilling in the copious amounts of leaves that I piled up and tilled into the soil.  I would have thought that the leaves would have turned my brown clay soil into black loam, but no.  The soil marginally darkened and somewhat softened, but the leaves seemed to disappear.  Whether this is from tilling causing rapid oxidizing of the leaves or that the leaves just don't have that much mass, I just don't know, but I tilled in multiple feet (once 4 feet!) into the beds over multiple years.  The tiller was good for working into the soil, but I question what I have for results.

If I were doing things over again, I would either go no-till or till only once and work in organic matter with the single till.  As it is, now I exclusively grow in wood chips that I pile on top of the soil (including new beds) which I break down with mushrooms into a fine garden bedding that effectively becomes my new topsoil.  Worms love it and do my tilling for me and now I have a hard time telling where my bedding stops and where the old clay begins as they have merged together.

I eventually sold the tiller long ago.  It was just taking up valuable space in the garage and was never used.  I sold it cheap to get rid of it at a garage sale.  

As for your own recommendations, my first suggestion is to pile on the organic matter and plant in a raised bed.  If that is impractical, then I suggest renting a tiller as others have said (alternatively, hiring out the job works also).  Third on my list of suggestions is to buy the cheapest tiller that you can, till once, work in whatever organic matter you can and then sell the tiller so that you are never tempted to use it again.  Since I stopped tilling, my beds have gotten much, much more fertile.

These are all just my experiences and thoughts so please take from them what you can and do what you think it best.

Good luck!

Eric

I have tillers and only use them to work on problem plots in the hay fields.

When I start a garden plot I don’t till anymore. If you can, find someone with a tractor and a subsoiler to do a one time deep rip - that really helps, but make sure you know if there are underground utilities.

For $700 (which it sounds like you are willing to spend on a tiller) you can buy one or more loads of compost. A full 20 yd. dump truck load of excellent compost here is $500. $200 for a dump truck of mulch. You get a lot farther with that than tillage - unless you are going the chemical fertilizer route.

Ideally: subsoil (deep rip), if you have problem weeds or creeping grasses put down cardboard, put down compost in rows so it’s thick, put down mulch on everything or just between the compost rows.