What Is a Garden Tiller?

A garden tiller also called a rototiller, is basically a farm plow with a motor. A garden tiller will lift up the soil and break apart dirt and weeds. It also turns over the soil and plants while aerating it. A garden tiller is powered using a gasoline or electric powered engine that powers tilling blades. Anyone who has gardening experience knows how difficult it is to break ground in a garden and to correctly manage and mix the soil over time. Manually tilling a garden is difficult, time-consuming, and hard on backs, especially as we all get older. Gardeners use a tiller in the fall to turn and mix plants into the ground to fertilize the soil and again in the spring to get the soil ready for planting.

In the chart below, you will find our top ten rated garden tillers. For a more in-depth review of each model, please click on "Read Review."

1.  GreenWorks 27072 8 Amp 10-Inch Corded Tiller
2. Troy-Bilt TB146 EC 29cc 4-Cycle Cultivator with JumpStart Technology
3.  Remington RM4625 Homestead 25cc 2-Cycle Gas Garden Cultivator with Premium Tines
4.  Southland Outdoor Power Equipment SFTT142 Front Tine Tiller
5.  Sun Joe TJ603E 16-Inch 12-Amp Electric Tiller and Cultivator
6.  Earthwise TC70001 11-Inch 8.5-Amp Corded Electric Tiller/Cultivator
7.  Earthquake MC43 Mini Cultivator Tiller - 43cc 2-Cycle Engine, 5 Year Warranty
8.  BLACK+DECKER LGC120 20V Lithium Ion Cordless Garden Cultivator/Tiller
9.  Mantis 4-Cycle Tiller Cultivator 7940 Powered by Honda
10. YARDMAX YT5328 Compact Front Tine Tiller, 79cc

The two basic types of tillers are rear-tine tillers and front-tine tillers. As the names suggest, a rear-tine tiller has blades placed behind the wheels while a front-tine tiller has blades placed in front of the wheels. A rear-tine tiller can dig deeper into a garden than the front-tine type of tiller. Also, most rear-tine tillers use counter-rotating tines which give it more power.

Rear-Tine Tillers

Front-Tine Tillers

All rototillers are made to break through and turn over soil and weeds. They all use blades powered by the engine to break through the ground and terrain.

After carefully reviewing the top ten tillers on the market, we have picked the Sun Joe TJ603E 16-Inch 12-Amp Tiller and Cultivatorchoice as the best tiller on the market.

Before buying a garden tiller, you will want to make sure that you consider three things.

Some tillers may look just incredibly big and high-powered. You may watch the video and think, “Wow, I could get done a lot of work very quickly with that big of a tiller.” Consider whether or not you have the strength and stamina to work with and operate the tiller model that you choose. Tillers are heavy and can be difficult to operate. In addition, make sure that you have an appropriate place to store the tiller when not in use. Tillers can be large and bulky and will need plenty of space to store safely.

Survey the gardening area where the tiller will be used. Can the tiller you are considering handle the workload required? If the garden space consists of very rough terrain and is a large area to till, then carefully consider what type of tiller has enough power to do the job appropriate to your needs. The purpose of buying the tiller is to have the machine do the hard work, not you. Choose and purchase a garden tiller that will be sturdy enough to handle the job.

A tiller can make all of your gardening jobs so much easier and quicker. Here are a couple of advantages to owning a tiller:

A tiller forces the fertilizer down deep into the soil where the roots will reach and benefitting the whole plant.

Simply put, a tiller will make your gardening jobs much easier and quicker to accomplish and save your back from the wear and tear that manually tilling a garden causes. A garden tiller will minimize much of the physical labor required to tilling soil and weeds.

Here are some of the most popular questions about tillers.

A tiller can make your gardening jobs much easier and complete them in a much shorter amount of time. A tiller can also do the job better than manually tilling the garden because the blades can reach deep down into the soil and weeds, turn it over, and fertilize the dirt at the same time. We hope that this garden tiller review has helped you learn about different kinds of tillers so that when it is the right time for you to purchase your own tiller with the budget that is right for you, it will ultimately best suit your gardening needs and improve the quality and success of your garden over time.