Buying a Tiller? Here’s What to Look For
Summer’s a time for sales, and a tiller is a big investment. Here’s what you need to know before buying.
For any garden too big to manually loosen the soil with a digging fork – which, unless you relish hours and hours of back-breaking work, means any garden consisting of more than a couple four-by-eight-foot beds – a tiller is an essential tool for creating the loose, fluffy soil that annual vegetables thrive in. But the variety of options can be daunting. Before you head to your local equipment dealer, familiarize yourself with the basics so you’re not sold something that you don’t need.
If you are lucky enough to score a good deal on a tiller of your own, don’t be so quick to pack your new purchase in the back of the shed until next spring – you’ll be needing it just a few months. Fall is the perfect time to start preparing your garden for spring planting, so keep it accessible. (It’s better to till in compost early and let the microbes do their magic for a few months before planting – and it is also the main window for sowing cover crops, for which the soil needs light tillage in preparation.)
Types of Tillers
Confused by all the tiller jargon? Here are the basics.
Cultivator: These mini-tillers are narrow enough to pass between rows of vegetables to “cultivate” the weeds that emerge after a crop is planted – meaning dig them out – without disturbing the roots of the crop. Besides removing weeds, cultivators are good at loosening the surface of the soil and mixing in compost in preparation for planting. They are not the tool, however, for tilling up hard earth that has never been tilled before.
- Garden Size: <500 square feet
- Tilling Width: 6”-16”
- Tilling Depth: 3”-6”
- Price: $100-$300
Front-Tine Tiller: These light-duty tillers, in which the tines (the blades that churn up the earth) are at the front of the machine, are larger and more powerful than cultivators. They are an affordable, all-purpose option for medium-sized gardens. The turning tines help to propel the machine forward, but it takes a fair amount of upper body strength to operate them, and they are tiring to use for long periods or in soil that is hard, rocky, or full of roots.
- Garden Size: 500-5,000 square feet
- Tilling Width: 12”-24”
- Tilling Depth: 6”-8”
- Price: $300-$600
Rear-Tine Tiller: These heavy-duty tillers have blades at the back and wheels at the front. More importantly, the wheels are typically powered by the engine, so they are easier to operate for long periods compared to front-tine tillers. On the other hand, the machines themselves are much heavier and larger, so it still takes plenty of strength to maneuver them. These tillers are the best option for breaking ground in heavy clay soil that has never been tilled before, or where the soil is full of roots and rocks. High-end rear-tine tillers, while pricey, are still cheaper than a tractor, so they are often employed by small sale market gardeners whose plot (and income) are not big enough to justify a larger investment. Gardeners with small plots often rent a rear-tine tiller to work the ground for the first time, and then buy a cheaper front-tine tiller to maintain friable soil on an annual basis.
- Garden Size: 5,000-10,000 square feet
- Tilling Width: 16”-36”
- Tilling Depth: 8”-10”
- Price: $600-$6,000
Mid-Tine Tiller: These are a variation of front-tine tillers where the tines are directly under the engine. The weight of the engine helps push the tines into the earth, while widely-spaced wheels on either side provide added stability. Mid-tine tillers are used for the same purposes as front-tine models, but they require significantly less strength to operate.
- Garden Size: 500-5,000 square feet
- Tilling Width: 12”-24”
- Tilling Depth: 6”-8”
- Price: $400-$800
Types of Tines
There are three main types of tines. Most tillers, especially the more expensive models, are designed to allow you change from one to the other depending on soil conditions. Sometimes it’s necessary to take a pass through the soil with each type, in succession.
Bolo: These curved or L-shaped blades are what comes standard on most models. They are best suited when deep tilling is desired and where rocks, vegetation, and roots are minimal.
Slasher: This is the best choice for cutting through roots and heavy vegetation. They are designed to prevent such debris from wrapping around the tines and becoming stuck, which is a common complaint with bolo tines.
Pick and Chisel: These are used to break up hard, rocky ground.
Tiller Maintenance Considerations
Some small cultivators are powered with an electrical cord, rather than a gas engine, eliminating much of the noise – and all of the exhaust. Some even operate with a rechargeable battery, the same as a power tool. There is virtually no maintenance involved in electric cultivators.
Gas engines are smelly, dirty, and require regular maintenance, such as oil changes and spark plug replacement. You’ll also need to drain the gas in winter or add a fuel stabilizer to keep it fresh for use again in spring. Smaller, front-tine tillers employ two-cycle engines, which run on a mix of gasoline and engine oil, while all rear-tine and larger front-tine models have four-cycle engines that run on straight gas. The bigger the engine, the more expensive and complex the maintenance becomes.
The Bells and Whistles
There are a variety of special features and add-ons that can make a tiller easier to use, and useful for a variety of tasks.
Adjustable Tilling Depth: One of the most basic features, this is essentially an adjustable bar at the rear of the tiller that controls how deep the tines can reach.
Adjustable Tine Width: Some models allow you to slide the tines closer together or farther apart for cultivating in rows of various widths.
Collapsible Handle: Most common on front-tine tillers, this feature makes it easier to fit a tiller in the back of a car or in a small storage space.
Counter-Rotating Tines: Some rear-tine tillers are designed so the tines spin in reverse as the wheels spin forward, creating additional traction and allowing you to till deeper, even in heavy soils.
Dual-Rotating Tines: High-end rear-tine tillers can switch back and forth between forward and reverse tine rotation.
Reverse Gear: This feature pertains not to the tines, but to the wheels of a rear-tine tiller. Being able to drive the machine in reverse makes it more maneuverable in tight spots and much less strenuous on the user.
Electric Start: Gas tiller engines are typically started with a pullcord, just like a lawnmower. Models with this feature start with the push of a button, however.
Attachments: Numerous gadgets are available to convert tillers to other uses, including snowblowers for winter maintenance and edgers and dethatchers for lawn maintenance. High-end rear-tine tillers typically include a PTO shaft, an all-purpose receptacle that can power a large number of implements, much like a tractor.
Follow us
Republish!
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Want to republish a Modern Farmer story?
We are happy for Modern Farmer stories to be shared, and encourage you to republish our articles for your audience. When doing so, we ask that you follow these guidelines:
Please credit us and our writers
For the author byline, please use “Author Name, Modern Farmer.” At the top of our stories, if on the web, please include this text and link: “This story was originally published by Modern Farmer.”
Please make sure to include a link back to either our home page or the article URL.
At the bottom of the story, please include the following text:
“Modern Farmer is a nonprofit initiative dedicated to raising awareness and catalyzing action at the intersection of food, agriculture, and society. Read more at <link>Modern Farmer</link>.”
Use our widget
We’d like to be able to track our stories, so we ask that if you republish our content, you do so using our widget (located on the left hand side of the article). The HTML code has a built-in tracker that tells us the data and domain where the story was published, as well as view counts.
Check the image requirements
It’s your responsibility to confirm you're licensed to republish images in our articles. Some images, such as those from commercial providers, don't allow their images to be republished without permission or payment. Copyright terms are generally listed in the image caption and attribution. You are welcome to omit our images or substitute with your own. Charts and interactive graphics follow the same rules.
Don’t change too much. Or, ask us first.
Articles must be republished in their entirety. It’s okay to change references to time (“today” to “yesterday”) or location (“Iowa City, IA” to “here”). But please keep everything else the same.
If you feel strongly that a more material edit needs to be made, get in touch with us at [email protected]. We’re happy to discuss it with the original author, but we must have prior approval for changes before publication.
Special cases
-
Extracts. You may run the first few lines or paragraphs of the article and then say: “Read the full article at Modern Farmer” with a link back to the original article.
-
Quotes. You may quote authors provided you include a link back to the article URL.
-
Translations. These require writer approval. To inquire about translation of a Modern Farmer article, contact us at [email protected]
-
Signed consent / copyright release forms. These are not required, provided you are following these guidelines.
-
Print. Articles can be republished in print under these same rules, with the exception that you do not need to include the links.
Tag us
When sharing the story on social media, please tag us using the following: - Twitter (@ModFarm) - Facebook (@ModernFarmerMedia) - Instagram (@modfarm)
Use our content respectfully
Modern Farmer is a nonprofit and as such we share our content for free and in good faith in order to reach new audiences. Respectfully,
-
No selling ads against our stories. It’s okay to put our stories on pages with ads.
-
Don’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually.
-
You have no rights to sell, license, syndicate, or otherwise represent yourself as the authorized owner of our material to any third parties. This means that you cannot actively publish or submit our work for syndication to third party platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. We understand that publishers cannot fully control when certain third parties automatically summarize or crawl content from publishers’ own sites.
Keep in touch
We want to hear from you if you love Modern Farmer content, have a collaboration idea, or anything else to share. As a nonprofit outlet, we work in service of our community and are always open to comments, feedback, and ideas. Contact us at [email protected].Buying a Tiller? Here’s What to Look For
by Brian Barth, Modern Farmer
July 20, 2018
Modern Farmer Weekly
Solutions Hub
Innovations, ideas and inspiration. Actionable solutions for a resilient food system.
ExploreExplore other topics
Share With Us
We want to hear from Modern Farmer readers who have thoughtful commentary, actionable solutions, or helpful ideas to share.
Submit
Firstly, thanks for sharing this amazing article. I appreciate that you talked about this tiller buying guide. Actually, my wife and I are thinking about remodeling our garden, and we are looking for advice. By the way, thanks for all these awesomeness! Keep it up.
Nice informative article about tillers. Many gardeners are confused which tillers will be suitable for them for gardening purpose. This article will clarify their doubt about tillers selection.