MY TROY BILT SUPER BRONCO ROTOTILLER REVIEW & AWESOME GIVEAWAY

It’s that time of the summer again folks – when the back-to school ads are starting to appear on TV, and when it’s time to start thinking about the fall vegetable garden. As many of you know, I am on of the Saturday6 Troy Bilt team, so full-disclosure here – this is a review AND a giveaway. That’s right, I may be given this awesome Super Bronco Rototiller to play with, but leave a message, ‘Like’ me on my Facebook page or share this on Pinterest, Google+ or Twitter, and leave a note on what you did at the end of this post, and you will be automatically entered in this epic giveaway. Just about the best one I have ever done. The giveaway ends this Sunday night at 11:00 PM Eastern Time, and I will announce the winner Monday morning. The fine folks at Troy Bilt will then send you one of these amazing, strong tillers.

**** CONTEST OVER*****

Congratulations to our winner, Caryl from A Growing Garden. in PA.!

But more about that, here – because I won’t let them get off so easily – this was a tiller that I really put through a torture test extraordinaire ( they may never let me test on again!), as New England soil is rocky, hard and rocky. Did I mention rocky? Sure, I have a few dents, even a flat tire( really! Although it’s fixed, a rock just got jammed in between the rubber wheel and the rim, and the air squished out. A quick pump, and it was fine – no puncture – hey – they are real tires!

THE SCENE OF THE CRIME – THE SIDE GARDEN ON THE WEST SIDE OF THE GREENHOUSE

FIRST, IT HAS TAKEN THREE WEEKS FOR US TO REMOVE THE TREES INCLUDING A 35 FOOT TALL YELLOW MAGNOLIA AND A LARGE WITCH HAZEL THAT I LOVED, BUT HAD TO GO.

This part of our garden was pretty useless. Only weeds and invasive plants, and the dogs have pounded the soil into a dead pan playground. It will now be a new vegetable garden. Joe challenged me to see if it could chew up the running, invasive bamboo, plus a bed full of sting vines like bittersweet and wisteria ( I know, we were crazy!). The tiller did much better than I thought it would, but after about ten minutes the vines were just too much, and they wrapped around the tines. We had to cut them out carefully, which was tedious. Surely, one would not do this anyway – but I wanted to push it.

WITH THE LARGER TREES REMOVED, YOU CAN SEE HOW HARD THE SOIL IS. IF THIS ISN’T A TORTURE TEST, I DON’T KNOW WHAT WILL BE. THIS IS WHAT A ROTOTILLER IS BEST FOR – ESTABLISHING A NEW GARDEN FROM ROCK-HARD SOIL. THEY ARE NOT GOOD FOR RAISED BEDS, OR WELL CONDITIONED SOIL.

AFTER TILLING THE FIRST TIME, I REALIZED THAT I HAD TO PULL OUT MORE WEEDS WITH A RAKE, BUT I WANTED TO GIVE THIS TILLER A REAL CHALLENGE, SO NOT SOIL PREP, WEEDING OR REMOVING OF SOD – REALLY! I KNOW, I WAS BRUTAL ( SORRY TROY BILT!), BUT YOUR MACHINE KEPT ON GOING. THE ONLY THING THAT STOPPED IT WAS WHEN JOE SAID – TAKE IT THROUGH THE BAMBOO. DON’T DO THAT.

So, I will admit that I am already a Troy Bilt fan, we now have three tillers in the barn, but the other two are twenty years old. Heavy, strong, repairable, which tiller geeks love ( they even have a website just for themselves where they trade tips and parts) so this tells me that these machines are beasts, long lived and built to last. When the Tory Bilt team asked me what I wanted, I told them that what I really needed was a good, yet not massive rototiller, as I had plans on making a new garden where one had once existed 60 years ago, but  never told them that it was was now overgrown with 30 foot trees, grass and dense clay soil underneath that was rock hard, and full of rocks. You know, New England stone walls, and all.