Ryobi Gas Cultivator

 I bought this machine after several years of hand spading the garden. It looks as if it may have come from a Star-Trek episode but really I got it at Home Depot for 200 bucks. Last year, I'd used a heavy duty and more expensive machine that I rented so the soil had been tilled once already. Even so, this little machine did the job. You can use it with all four tines for tilling or you can remove the two outer tines for cultivation between rows.


Some people complained that it was hard starting but I didn't notice. It's a four-stroke so maybe they didn't mix the gas properly. The only thing I have against it is that it sounds like a sewing machine. I think a woman could use it as easily as a strong man could :). I'm thinking of customizing mine and running straight pipes out of it to make it sound more macho.

I've run it fairly often and run it pretty hard, breaking new ground in one spot when I got ambitious and garden-crazy. I've run it over rocks. It stopped once when a big rock got caught in the tines. The warranty period will soon be over so I'm starting to be careful with it. There are better, heavier, and far more expensive machines but this is not a toy. It does do the job. I've bought a couple of Ryobi tools. Ryobi tools have the right price point for me. In this crappy economy, that matters.

You dont' want to spend a thousand dollars on a garden to produce 900 dollars worth of vegetables.