I hear they are a dependable machine an a good investmest at $300.00.

what do you all you?

kind regards,
simply divine joe

However, I have also heard horror stories about breakdowns of new machines, difficulty finding local places to service them, & terrible customer service from the parent company.

You might want to check out the Garden Watchdog website & see what they have to say.

Use it, drain it. Any gas left in it will gum up the carb and end up costing twice the purchase price in repairs over it's lifespan.

I only got this advice in the third year I owned a Mantis.

Too late.

On the other hand, the electric model looks sweet.

They do a great job hilling up potatoes and weeding around plants in the garden.

This will be my first time buying one so I am checking out all I can.
Good luck!
~MamaSpud

I've looked at other tillers and am a 'Toro' kind of guy.

The other day I went to Home depot and decided to rent their Manti Mini Tiller and I was impressed. For a litte machine its a work horse. Although I used it the whole day and filled its gas tank twice it did an excellent job.

What you need to be aware of is that the Mantis that I used was a 4 cycle engine type. The gentleman told me that I would be wise to use the 4 speed since it was strong enough to do the tilling that I wanted to do. Accordingly, if I used a 2 cycle that would be for flower beds specifically since it is a smaller engine with less power. A cultivator type machine.

Home Depot would sell me one similar to what the factory would ship me however, in terms of assessories the factory would enclude assessories as well. The good part about this would be that HD would put the tiller together where if I received it from the factory I would have to put it together.

I have been looking at tillers on ebay and will look again when I have time. They do have some good buys. Thanks for bringing that to my attention!

Remember, look out for a 4 cycle engine and you will be pleasantly surprised when it arrives and you begin to use it.

Happy hunting,
simplydivinejoe

We have heavy clay--when it's wet, it won't come off a shovel, and when it's dry, you can't get a shovel into it. (dynamite works great, but it's sooo hard to round up all the chunks of clay and put back into the hole...)

My mantis has broken up the clay down to about 18 inches. It takes some time, and rockng it side-to-side helps it dig. It WILL bounce, but it doesn't take you with it like some of the big ones do. I learned the hard way to use a weed eater and scalp the grass down to the ground before 'tilling, or you have to keep stopping and unwinding the grass/roots from the tines.

The tines are reversible for deep digging or for weed control between garden rows.

I purchased mine locally, and they threw in the edger attachment just like the direct order would do. The edger works great for making a slit to put edging materials into. I tried many "pound in" edging materials that broke before they ever got into the ground deep enough to stand up. With the edger attachment, I just wheel it around the shape I want to enclose, then slip the edging down into the slit.

I've been lucky with the gas thing, because I've had no problem with it gumming up the carb. Then again, our weather is so screwy during the "winter", I may actually use it in the middle of Dec. or Jan., so it doesn't sit for months at a time.

Last summer I got stuck in traffic with a pawn shop out my right window. After about half an hour, I pulled over, parked and went in -- and they had a Honda four-stroke minitiller still in its original box for about $200. I went home that night and asked the guys on the Toolshed forum the pros and cons of this machine/what I should offer for it -- next afternoon I bought it for $75. Thanks to the TS guys, I expected the difficulties I encountered in assembling it, and knew to buy my own connector bolts since the ones that came with it didn't fit. Not bad at all -- I had it together in only an hour or so, and I am not normally mechanically inclined.

This tiller is like having a manic Jack Russell terrier at the end of a leash -- it digs deeper than the big boy does, I can lift it and start it easily, and if it bounces around, it's still controllable. The big boy stays in the shed now except for heavy big projects like initial tilling of a large bed. The Terrier is my tool of choice for digging tree-planting holes or even digging out the foot-wide foundation for the 75 feet of drystone wall I've laid over the last 6 months...

By the way, the TS guys will tell you that overtilling is really bad for your soil -- not only does it kill worms, the tines essentially polish the bottom of where they scrape, compacting the base below your loose soil and preventing water percolation. So I till once to loosen the ground and just once more to work in a stack of amendments -- after that things stay loose enough to use the Terrier for individual holes.

LynnT

You save on maintenance of a tiller, space to store it, hassle of running the tiller, you water less, you weed less, you make less noise/air pollution, you fertilize less (and when you do it stays in your soil longer).

Mulching is the easiest way to improve clay soil. Wet conditions are improved by mulch since it increases air space and allows water to soak in better. Dry conditions are made fewer and farther in between because the mulch keeps the clay closer to the optimal wetness level. In time the mulch breaks down into beautiful soil that is incorporated into the clay by worms and other soil organisms.

If you are skeptical, try mulching (layers of newspaper + 4-8 inches of wood chips, shredded leaves, etc, depending on material and plants) only part of your garden, and maintaining the rest conventionally. Keep track of how often you have to water each half, and how well the plants do in both. Especially, be sure to mulch again in the fall, and compare the two areas.

I bet you will agree that the soil you end up with the following spring does not need tilling and never will again.

Why buy a machine that will sit in your shed 364 days a year?

Just my 2¢