I bought a Tiller attachment for my Trim mer...

“I wanted to rent a tiller to till up the flower beds in front of my house because they were overgrown with weeds and just didn't look very good. Of course the rent-all place is closed on Sundays and I didn't feel like pick-mattocking the whole area after walking 18 holes of golf in the morning. Well I remembered seeing this attachment that would fit my Toro string trimmer fairly cheap... only $89 at the Home Depot. I did some research and found several favorable reviews of the old Ryboi version at Amazon.com. I was really shocked at my findings because I always assumed they would suck donkey anal glands.

Of course the whole point of this story is that I went out and bought one and tilled a 4 x 12 area in front of the house and was very suprised how well it worked. I wouldn't want to do a whole yard with it but for small home gardens and flower beds I can't imagine a better tool out there for the price if you have a string trimmer that will accept the expand-it accessories. Very easy to work around tight spaces and maneuver. I never in my life imagined it would work as well as it did on my lumpy clay-mixed soil. Fills all my tilling needs perfectly.

”

“Does the trimmer have to to be gas? I would think you'd need a trimmer with some balls for that thing to work well. I have one of the rechargable craftsman trimmers. I bet it wouldn't work for me. I'm selling my big 5 hp tiller this spring and doing smaller raised beds rather than a whole garden. That would work awesome for what I need.”

“The expand-it attachments are for Gas trimmers... I've never seen an electric that used the Expand-it attachments. It's awsome for those small raised beds around the house... which is what I bought it for. Especially because it's so maneuverable and can get into tighter spaces. I have a plain Toro 25.4cc 2 cycle gas brush cutter/string trimmer so it's far from the top of the line models at home Depot. There is a gearbox in the tiller that generates a lot of mechanical advantage from the fast spinning 2 cycle motor so it really digs well. My bed was a mixture of wood mulch, clay, and loam and it tore through it pretty easily... even breaking up some of the larger wood chunks of the mulch. You can adjust the tines for more power if needed.”

“That's what I figured. I'm planning on the soil being pretty full of compost (more like debris gardening) so I may be able to just turn my beds with a pitch fork.”

“i've got a gas poulan trimmer with a quick attach tiller and brush cutter.

looks very similar. works ok. i wouldn't want to till a heavy clay soil with it. works great for horse poop.”

“I have the gas version of that. Love it!”

“That thing can't possibly work.”

““That thing can't possibly work.”

That's what I thought till I bought one.”

“I guess no one wants to admit to a dumb purchase, huh?”

“At least ddx hikes...”

“Oh Nigal, that was so cold.
LOL”

“Get a room, you two.”

“Well Violin is just taking the standard liberal approach to anything. If they don't understand something they just proclaim it doesn't or won't work without any evidence to back up their claim. And he doesn't hike.”

“DDX not only hikes, he has hiked with other TTers.”

“I know it won't work.

You just feel that it does.

See the difference?”

“hello. my name is sacco and i use my weedwacker rototiller when i'm not hiking.”

“And we know you are an idiot...

you just feel that you are not.

See the difference?”

“I have a similar tiller for my echo trimmer. It was a bit more expensive. I broke a number of shear pins (ground is kinda hard & has rocks)& broke a worm gear. Fixed them myself. Seems to work OK. Better for small (previously tilled/turned area's) and around shrubbery.

Got a revolving brush too that I saw landscape crews use in parking lots. Worked ok on hard services but not retrieving gravel from my lawn. It was easier to have it brush it towards me but was still a lot of work.”

“i've seen these too but i've always wondered about the power from a string trimmer...isn't it significantly lower than that of a normal tiller?...it'd almost seem to me that you'd send your trimmer to an earlier grave this way...but hell, what do i know, i'm just putting out my first garden this year”

“It's called mechanical advantage. Just like the low gear in your 4x4. High RPM engine turns through a gearbox and turns a relativly low RPM tine.”

“i understand gear ratios but it still sounds under powered to me...maybe that's just my testosterone speaking ;)”

“mine works good for turning soft loamy stuff, working in fertilizer. works great for churning up the horse poop i put down.

no good for rocks or clay”

“does it have enough weight to dig into the soil on it's own like a normal tiller or do you have to push down on it?”

“it sorta digs it's own way through.

worst part is hitting a golf ball sized rock. they tend to get stuck in the tines and seize it up. it can be a real PIA to knock out the rock.”

“If I was going to till a large area for a garden, I'd use (rent/borrow)a full sized garden tiller. For tilling weeds/compost around plants in a garden or around shrubbery it's pretty decent. Kinda light duty for virgin ground.”