One Great Tool!
Written: Jun 20 '01 (Updated Feb 22 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: powerful, lightweight, ease of use, portable
Cons: none yet...
The Bottom Line: Run, do not walk.....and buy one!
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| lllopez's Full Review: Mantis Tiller |
GARDENING, although greatly recreational at times, is work. When you strip away all the joys of this quite exhausting avocation, there is a great deal of effort and back-busting labor to get those vegetables, fruit and flora!
GARDENING: This is a particularly back- breaking effort. In the Spring you can bust your back with a shovel, turning over the soil, mounding or raising it, then you spend countless hours bent over weeding with hand tools and shaping your beds.
FLORA: As I drive around I calculate about a third of us actually become proactive in the landscaping of our homes. It’s no wonder…there’s a great deal of work involved. Oh I’m certain we would all like to have beautifully manicured an interestingly complex looking flower beds, but who want to take on the backbreaking effort? I’m certain another third of us would, if not for the chore of it all.
ANSWER: I have a 1600 square foot garden, live on 3 acres and my wife is a flower & landscape fanatic! Grounds for divorce? Nah…time to be resourceful. My first line of defense was to purchase a Troy bilt Pony for the heavy work involved in turning over that 1600 sq ft garden. It was a dream come true. Almost effortless like on tv! The problem was , as good as it was cleaning and weeding the larger areas, it did not get in close and cut up larger clumps of soil. Try as I did, I managed to have a great looking garden into the summer with a great deal of effort, especially weeding. Now when the heat & humidity came around, frankly the garden came second to keeping cool and it showed. THE MANTIS was my next move. Now I can get in close with the weeding. My raised beds are weed free all the time because what was work ie: getting out the Troy Bilt and a host of hand tools now involves me picking up this Lightweight machine, three pulls and 45 minutes later I am done. The beds are weeded and dressed…NO MORE TOOLS! I hardly break a sweat and saved about 2 hours on the job!
RESULTS: My garden never looked so good! My plants are healthy, soil aerated, and wife is happy! I put the Mantis in the trunk of my car, take the machine to my Mother’s house and put in shrubs ( it digs great), edge her new beds and driveway, and sidewalk, and end up showing the machine to someone who saw it on tv and wants to see if it is all that they say it is. I dare say I have sold a few of these.
BOTTOM LINE: If you own a garden and do not own a Mantis…you are simply working way too hard unnecessarily! If it were stolen, I would not hesitate a moment replacing it!
UPDATE****UPDATE****UPDATE****UPDATE***UPDATE
May 2002 It has been two years since my purchase and 1 since the review. I just tilled my garden yesterday and I have renewed enthusiasm for this machine! It is interesting to note that if you use this machine properly, you will not have to manually construct raised beds. By pulling on the Mantis, toward the planting bed, the rotary action of the blade will propel soil toward you, forming a mound of earth which,as you travel along your row, will establish a raised bed! A major time and backsaver! I am somewhat disappointed I cannot use my Troybilt, but time is money and unless I am breaking new ground, this is my tool of choice! No repair issues to date. Of note: mark your gas/oil mix containers clearly. Any 2 cycle machine will not work properly if you get the wrong mixture in there. I know...a simple suggestion, but trust me it happens more often than not and you are left wondering why your machine is sluggish...it more than likely is a lean gas/oil mixture.
Recommended:
Yes
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