I have one put out by gardeners supply co. I like it but it is noisy and smelly- much worse than the lawnmower. Also, as you said, it doesn't dig down, it just mixes in ammendments and tills in weeds and fallen leaves. If it finds a med size rock, that will stop it. I used it mostly to prepare areas for grass. Now the grass is mostly gone and given over to roses. I am thinking of donating it somewhere people do vegetable gardening and can share it.

I have been debating between the two for a long time. I came to conclusion that the Mantis has the same proven gear box for years where Honda is new. Also I am using it mainly for de-thatching. The video I post below show how good the Mantis work, I just want to play it safe. I just order the Mantis with Honda engine with de-thatcher and aerator tines. Mantis have promotion. $449 for tiller, they kick in the kick stand, edger, free shipping, one year refund. Just can't refuse this. I mainly use it for de-thatching. If you have doubt of how well this little thing work for dethatching, check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU7kUDcOhiU I choose Mantis over Honda FG110 because of the promotion and also the gear reduction ratio. Mantis is 42:1 vs Honda 35:1. Higher gear ratio of Mantis meaning the tines turn slower and have better torque. For de-thatching, slower turning should be better for the grass so it won't damage the grass as much. Also higher gear ratio means it won't labor the engine as much. I choose the Honda engine because the Echo is rated only at 0.9hp where as the Honda is 1.1hp. 0.9hp for the Echo engine is published by Mantis. Honda GX25 is rated 1.1hp in many documentation. I hate mixing oil. I have HC151 hedge trimmer with the same Echo engine, it is loud and harder to start. I have the Honda HHT31S trimmer and the engine is so quiet, the sound of the trim head spinning is as loud as the motor. You almost can get away without ear plug.( don't even think about it). I'll post my experience after I use it. It should be here in a week.

Jan, You're welcome. When you ask for old spoiled hay, be sure it was not sprayed with one of the long-lived herbicides like clopyralid (see old thread linked below) that can kill garden plants for several years. Even when I personally know the folks who have grown the hay and they assure me they didn't spray the hay with anything, I worry that maybe the landowners on adjacent land might have sprayed and it might have drifted into our friends' hay pasture. I cut up the hay into little pieces with scissors and mix it 50-50 with a soil-less potting mix in paper cups. Then I put bean seed or pea seed in it and wait for them to sprout and grow. If the hay is contaminated with herbicide residue, you'll be able to see it in the way the seeds sprout and grow (or don't sprout and grow). Yes you can start peas and beans inside but with a couple of caveats. First, neither one of them especially enjoys being transplanted and it can set them back so much that they stall and don't grow after being transplanted. So, in order to avoid that stall, plant them in something plantable.....peat pellets, peat pots, paper cups with slits cut in the bottom for the roots to grow right through, home-made newspaper pots (directions all over the internet) or cardboard tubes from paper towel or toilet paper tubes. Secondly, be careful you don't start them too early. Peas and beans are quick to sprout and grow in warm indoor temperatures so don't need 6 to 8 weeks indoors to reach transplant size like tomatoes and peppers do. Start pea seeds indoor 2 to 3 weeks before you intend to transplant them into the ground. I started my pea seeds in paper cups last week. They are out in the greenhouse so are just starting to sprout because our nights have been around freezing about every third night lately. That's fine. They are used to being cold so that it won't be a shock when they go into the ground. That's why I have them in the greenhouse. If you raise the peas indoors, keep them as cool as you can after they sprout because they won't be real happy if they are used to a house that is 72-75 degrees all day and then get transplanted outside where the high temps are, let's say, in the 40s or 50s. I usually transplant mine into the ground when they are just an inch or two tall so that also lessens the chance of transplant shock. With beans, it can be a little trickier. Once the bean seeds sprout, they can reach for the sky and get 3 to 4" tall in just a couple of days. You need to be ready to put them into the ground right after they sprout. I do like to start my bean seeds indoors. For me, it is more about the spacing. I plant in the John Jeavons' Biointensive Gardening style and don't want to waste an inch of space, so starting with transplants in paper cups instead of bean directly sown into the ground makes me happy because it is an efficient use of space and seeds. I don't have any gaps in my planting because I already have living bean transplants at planting time. I don't waste seeds by sowing too closely together in the ground and then thinning them out. It is sort of the best of both worlds. Beans will sprout and grow just fine when direct sown, though, so I don't want anyone thinking they have to sow them indoors. I just like to do it so I have a properly filled bed with exact biointensive-type spacing from Day 1. I sow bean seeds in paper cups only 10-14 days before the transplant date and, if they grow too fast, sometimes I put them in the ground a few days early because I don't want their roots to get too crowded in the paper cups before I can get them into the ground. I also routinely sow bean and southern pea seeds in cups as succession crops. For example, let's say I expect to harvest my broccoli by late May or early June. A couple of weeks before that, I'll sow southern pea seeds, usually Pink Eye Purple Hull peas, in cups outdoors in a a semishady area. I like for them to get at least a half day of sun while growing in the cups so they can tolerate the sunshine in the garden when transplanted. In the morning of the final broccoli harvest, I harvest all the broccoli, pull out the plants. I might add a little compost to the soil, rake it out and smooth it down. Then I transplant the southern peas into the ground, water them in and then mulch. Your friends and neighbors who happen to keep an interested eye on your garden will be puzzled when they see nice healthy young pea plants growing in a spot that they are "positive" had broccoli just a day or two earlier. It makes me grin when they ask me, in a puzzled tone of voice, "what happened to the broccoli?". Non-gardeners often don't realize broccoli is a spring crop and don't understand why it is suddenly gone from the garden, or how the peas sprouted and grew seemingly overnight. Helen, You're welcome. It is a technique borrowed from the idea of building hugelkultur beds. I started doing it back after I built my first huglekultur bed in Fort Worth in the 1980s or early 1990s. When I had all these big molasses feed tubs to fill here, I figured that if hugelkultur worked both on top of the ground or in pits dug into the ground, it ought to work in the really big pots...and it did. I like that it gives me a way to use the deadfall in the woods instead of just leaving it to rot (which does enrich the woodland soil anyhow, not that it needs it). A lot of people here burn their brush piles and wood piles, and I hate seeing all that lovely wood and brush go up in flames. I'd rather recycle it and put it to good use. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Previous Thread on Killer Compost

Back in May I bought a little Black and Decker one that ran off of a lithium battery. A full charge got me about 13 minutes. It went back. I got a plug in Sun Joe and it works well for my needs. My husband calls it "weak".