Review: Troy-Bilt 6.5 Amp Electric Tiller/Cultivator

In December 2008 my family (wife, son, step-daughter and me) bought a new house on a .55 acre property. This place needs a LOT of yard work. To keep this entry of getting too long and to focus on the Troy-Bilt tiller review, for now I'll only wrote about my current work in our front yard. The front yard from our driveway is 60-70ft (gets wider down our lot) over to the neighbor’s property line, and 54ft down our driveway to the house. About 12ft of the 54ft from our house is a flower/vegetable (nothing there yet) bed between the main entrance, and there is also a 4ft wide walkway. About 12 ft of the 60-70ft width next to the neighbor’s property line is tall trees and some bushes. The rest, about 50-60ft x 38ft is a pathetic looking lawn.

Second thing I did after getting the inside of the house organized after the move, was building a split-level fence up the driveway and over the one neighbor’s property line. First thing was building a chicken coop, which I’ll write about in another entry . For the split-level fence I bought treated 4x4’s as posts and two 2x4’s bars from post to post. On top of each post I put a solar light. Several neighbors have commented how nice the fence looks. The reasons for building the fence, was part containment of dog and two toddlers, plus eventually a bit of privacy as I thought about a hedge grown close to the fence. I eventually decided on an edible hedge, an orchard consisting of dwarf fruit trees at every post, except at two end posts, two corner posts, and one post at an existing small tree. In between the dwarf fruit trees I envisioned various berry bushes, three different varieties of seedless grape, one in between a post I could trellis on the bars plus two boysenberry between the two remaining posts up the driveway. From the driveway and street corner down close to the neighbors property line, I bought 5 dewberry, 3 raspberry, 2 blackberry and 4 blueberry bushes, for two bushes in between each two posts. Even with a manual post digger it took me about an hour to dig and put down each post, as it was all hard clay and rocks, some of them huge!

When the trees and bushes arrived, yes I ordered it via the Internet, I began digging the holes for them and quickly realized that this would take me a few months, as I only have about two hours to work in, after my day job is over, plus the weekends but only if the weather is cooperating. So after taking forever to put down a few grapes and cherry dwarf trees, I bought a Troy-Bilt 6.5 amp electric tiller/cultivator, and that sure is my new best garden power tool! Now I chose electric because I do not appreciate the noise, fumes and potential start problems of a gas powered tool. Actually I prefer manual tools over electric, as this gives me some needed exercise. Anyways I was worried, or rather was expecting the tines on the tiller would broke within an hour or two due to the hardness of the clay dirt, and the size of some of the rocks. But this amazing machine is truly a workhorse and I have yet to even press the overload reset button after about a total of 10-12 hours of use. All those hours by the way, have not only been for putting down more of my dwarf fruit trees and berry bushes, but mainly to level and till my pathetic looking lawn.



Every day after work I try to put in a few hours and every time it spits up a large rock or shreds a hidden branch it amazes me the tines it holding up to that use (abuse). Note that this Troy-Bilt tiller does not till or cultivate very deep, about 6-8 inches, so for the tree and bush planting holes I have to till, remove dirt and repeat once or twice. But once I have the hole or actually trench, I put down heavily with leaves, course sand, peat moss, wood shavings plus some of the original clay dirt, and run through the hole or trench with the Troy-Bilt electric tiller to mulch the leaves, and mix the components thoroughly together. For my pathetic looking existing lawn, or rather lawn area I found that sticking a spade as deep as I could at an angle in the ground and lifting slightly every 8-10” to loosen the brick hard clay in some areas, and then run it over with the Troy-Bilt tiller helps tremendously, especially in time, as without using the spade in these area and just the Troy-Bilt tiller alone would take me a long time as it could only shave off/till a tiny bit of clay dirt at a time.

Any negatives about this electric Troy-Bilt tiller/cultivator? Not really but sometimes the long electric cords I carry around in the yard, can be a bit of a drag or a slight annoyance, but I just have to work a smaller area at a time to keep the extra cord short and out of my way and sometimes it helps routing the cord over one shoulder. Anyways it certainly does not discourage the use of this wonderful machine, and I have recommended (praised) this electric version Troy-Bilt tiller to two coworkers plus one neighbor how are strongly considering buying it.

You can get the Troy-Bilt electric tiller/cultivator for a very resonable price including free shipping on Amazon.

Rant: Parking Citation at William B. Umstead Park

Welcome to my blog! For a few years I have wanted to start a blog about interesting things going on in my life and a place to vent my occasional rant.

Now I did not plan to start my blog with a rant, but I need to get this one out of my system.

Yesterday I got very upset when in my opinion an over-zealous State Park Ranger Bob Davis wrote me a $146 citation for parking about 25 minutes to the side off a dirt road in William B. Umstead Park in Raleigh, North Carolina. I say over-zealous because it should have been a warning, not a $146 citation.

Let me explain why I parked off the side of a dirt road, instead of in a “designated parking area”. My wife and our two year old son had driven from our home near I-40 Harrison Ave. exit with the park brochure in hand, and planned to eat lunch near the Glenwood Avenue entrance because we wanted, after our lunch, to have the least walking distance from a parking area to the “Point of Interest” and that is a JOKE “Airport Overlook”on Reed Creek Trail to show the Airport and especially planes for our son.

So after our lunch we enter the park, drive slowly down the narrow roads past the visitor center, then left, and then right on a dirt and gravel road down to the “Big Lake” where according to the map in the park brochure there should be parking, but no only two handicap spots. This means we have three choices, we can drive home and disappoint our son, or we can drive back to a parking area that also allows non-handicapped stickered cars to park and then have to walk even longer with him as we did not bring a stroller as we planned the distance from the map showing parking spaces closer, but did NOT specify it was handicap spots only, or we can try to drive a bit further to try and find an area closer to the “Point of Interest”, again a joke, “Airport Overlook” area where we can park off the road and walk as short a distance as possible with our two year old son.

When we came as close as possible to the anti-climax “Point of Interest”, I’ll explain in a bit, we parked off the side of a dirt road, right before a “Official Traffic Only” sign and walked about a mile to the according to the map “Point of Interest – Airport Overlook”, well actually we walked past it and had to ask a few joggers where it was, and it was behind us! Then we walked back to the clearing we previously passed and was greatly disappointed that this was called a “Point of Interest” named “Airport Overlook”, sure overlook if you have binoculars because it’s 3 miles away, and then it’s only for small propeller planes. So my son literally could see nothing of interest, nor could we, so we walked the mile back to our car. As we came down Reed Creek Trail to the dirt road we parked on, closed by a metal gate I saw a park ranger turning around and back towards where we parked, and surely enough when we got close to my car I saw the pink slip in my windshield, and when I reached it I read it was a $146 parking citation, a $146 price to pay for about 25 minutes of parking off the side, at the end a dirt, not obstructing traffic and in nobody’s way. Actually we were forced to park at this location since the ADVERTISED parking spots in the park brochure allowed only handicapped sticker cars, and since we could not walk with our two-year old son 10 or so miles. On top of this false map parking advertising, calling the “Airport Overlook” a “Point of Interest” is a joke as there is literally nothing to see! Because of false advertsing of parking area and the deception of point of interest, I think a $146 parking citation is completely unfair and I plan to fight this citation vigorously. This morning I emailed Scott Letchwort at the park, complaining by pretty much writing him as I written here. If that won't result in my citation being cancelled (reversed) I'll figth it in court, and I am seriously considering sueing the state park seeking class-action lawsuit, as I am sure other unfortunate, frustrated and disappointed people have been forced to make tough decisions as whether to cancel going to a point of interest, park far off in the distance or park “illegal”.

The people at the park seriously need to revise their park brochure and make it clear which parking areas that are only for vehicles with a handicapped sticker, and they should also made avaialable of their abundant space for parking areas closer to points of interest, whether those points are actually interesting or not!