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Product Review: The Troy-Bilt TB154 Electric Garden Cultivator
By brwood(view all posts by brwood)
at 6:58AM Tuesday May 17, 2011
under
Product Review
I am a suburban home owner and like many other home owners I have a small vegetable garden in my back yard. Last year was my first year attempting to grow anything and it was a real learning experience. For one thing, I learned that even after adding six inches of free dirt from Craigslist, I still had soil better suited for making adobe bricks than for growing tomatoes.
So, what to do? Well, this year I was going to dig deep break up all the hard clay and start fresh. Doing it by hand, even in my 5" x 12" garden would be a backbreaking task.
Time to call in the power tools! Luckily I had a Troy-Bilt TB154 tiller at my disposal for the weekend.
But, the real question to be answered: Would one of the smallest, least expensive, lightest weight tillers be tough enough to break up the hard packed clay of my 50 year-old suburban back yard? Let's break out the Troy-Bilt tiller and see.
The Troy-Bilt TB154 Electric Garden Cultivator is their entry level offering. It retails for less than $200. You plug it to an outlet using a nice long extension cord and just go to work.
The motor is rated at 6.5 amps, but neither you nor I really know what that means. It features four 8" metal wheels on the bottom with bent teeth for digging, ripping and tearing into the earth, and two rubber wheels for rolling along the ground. The wheels can be set at four different heights to adjust the depth the spinning claws dig.
The Craftsman 29263 and Yard Machines 21A-155A900 appear to be the exact same machine.
The nice thing about this unit is its small size and light weight--the whole thing weighs about 20 lbs. Anyone can easily lift it and put it in the trunk of their car. Equally important, it can be easily lifted over a two foot tall wiener dog-proof fence with no gate in it.
Another benefit of its size is it can easily be maneuvered around in a small garden space, like mine, without even destroying the one tough tomato plant that is entering its third summer of producing fruit. There was a close call though, when it took a wild hop after hitting a particularly hard patch of clay. Luckily, even though it ended up wrapped stuck in the wire fence, it didn't destroy anything.
Just be careful, the light weight of the machine does have a disadvantage.
I plugged it in, set it for maximum deepness, and just had at it. Like the stereotypical male from the sitcoms and the stand-up routines, I never read directions. But, in my defense, a properly designed piece of equipment for a simple task like tearing up the garden shouldn't require much in the way of instruction.
Like I said, my ground was rock hard. There were times I had to stop and check to make sure I wasn't trying to till a hunk of concrete. But every time I would just let the Troy-Bilt do its thing and claw its way down, and it would break it up the clumps.
Occasionally it would require tilting it to one side so just one wheel would bite into it. Make no mistake: This machine was able to make short work of 50 years worth of suburban neglect.
Compared to the other two options:
1) Breaking up the ground with a rake and hoe (which I did last year to the six inches of new dirt I added)
or
2) Renting a big gas powered tiller from Home Depot or the like,
the $200 price tag of a Troy-Bilt TB154 or similar seems to be a good investment. The rake and hoe method does an inferior job and is back breaking labor. The larger gas-powered tiller is great if you want to tear up your whole yard, but is way too much tool for a 60 square foot garden. Plus, you need a pick-up truck or a SUV to get it home and a friend to help lift it.
Bite the bullet and buy this little suburban weekend saver. If your time is worth $25 an hour, this $200 tool will have to save you eight hours to be worth it. You will easily save that time in two spring plantings. Or, find yourself a friend who needs one to and go in on it together. Instead of a whole weekend, getting your garden ready for planting will only take you an hour with this little baby.
It is rare when you find an entry level tool like this that is perfect for the job, but believe me this one is all you need.
So, what to do? Well, this year I was going to dig deep break up all the hard clay and start fresh. Doing it by hand, even in my 5" x 12" garden would be a backbreaking task.
Time to call in the power tools! Luckily I had a Troy-Bilt TB154 tiller at my disposal for the weekend.
But, the real question to be answered: Would one of the smallest, least expensive, lightest weight tillers be tough enough to break up the hard packed clay of my 50 year-old suburban back yard? Let's break out the Troy-Bilt tiller and see.
The motor is rated at 6.5 amps, but neither you nor I really know what that means. It features four 8" metal wheels on the bottom with bent teeth for digging, ripping and tearing into the earth, and two rubber wheels for rolling along the ground. The wheels can be set at four different heights to adjust the depth the spinning claws dig.
The Craftsman 29263 and Yard Machines 21A-155A900 appear to be the exact same machine.
The nice thing about this unit is its small size and light weight--the whole thing weighs about 20 lbs. Anyone can easily lift it and put it in the trunk of their car. Equally important, it can be easily lifted over a two foot tall wiener dog-proof fence with no gate in it.
Another benefit of its size is it can easily be maneuvered around in a small garden space, like mine, without even destroying the one tough tomato plant that is entering its third summer of producing fruit. There was a close call though, when it took a wild hop after hitting a particularly hard patch of clay. Luckily, even though it ended up wrapped stuck in the wire fence, it didn't destroy anything.
Just be careful, the light weight of the machine does have a disadvantage.
I plugged it in, set it for maximum deepness, and just had at it. Like the stereotypical male from the sitcoms and the stand-up routines, I never read directions. But, in my defense, a properly designed piece of equipment for a simple task like tearing up the garden shouldn't require much in the way of instruction.
Occasionally it would require tilting it to one side so just one wheel would bite into it. Make no mistake: This machine was able to make short work of 50 years worth of suburban neglect.
Compared to the other two options:
1) Breaking up the ground with a rake and hoe (which I did last year to the six inches of new dirt I added)
or
2) Renting a big gas powered tiller from Home Depot or the like,
the $200 price tag of a Troy-Bilt TB154 or similar seems to be a good investment. The rake and hoe method does an inferior job and is back breaking labor. The larger gas-powered tiller is great if you want to tear up your whole yard, but is way too much tool for a 60 square foot garden. Plus, you need a pick-up truck or a SUV to get it home and a friend to help lift it.
Bite the bullet and buy this little suburban weekend saver. If your time is worth $25 an hour, this $200 tool will have to save you eight hours to be worth it. You will easily save that time in two spring plantings. Or, find yourself a friend who needs one to and go in on it together. Instead of a whole weekend, getting your garden ready for planting will only take you an hour with this little baby.
It is rare when you find an entry level tool like this that is perfect for the job, but believe me this one is all you need.
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