Troy-Bilt TB144 26cc 4-Cycle Gas-Powered Cultivator/Tiller with Edger Attachment Kit
Review by Kelly Sorenson "SmileyK" : Great little machine to have

I am very have with this Tiller / Edger. There are so may projects you can do with this. I am currently working on a dog run and putting cement around it. The Troy-Bilt Tiller made digging the trench a lot easier. I am very pleased.

Troy-Bilt TB144 26cc 4-Cycle Gas-Powered Cultivator/Tiller with Edger Attachment Kit
Review by Jean Yates "Oregonian wine-ian & booklover" : Just What I Needed to Keep Raised Beds in Good Shape

It's not heavy duty enough to break through compressed sod, but it's light and maneuverable so I can lift it into a raised bed and till. It reaches down about 10-12 inches and if there's a lot of weeds, pops them loose so they are easy to remove from the soil.

I have 12 large raised beds full of winter weeds and it would take days to prepare them with a shovel. This little wiz-kid just whips through them and fluffs up the soil like it just came out of the potting soil bag. Highly recommended.

Troy-Bilt TB144 26cc 4-Cycle Gas-Powered Cultivator/Tiller with Edger Attachment Kit
Review by John Kramer : Troy-Bilt does the job

I purchased the Troy-Bilt cultivator after trying a neighbor's Mantis. The Mantis worked but was hard to start and finicky about adjustments, plus it bogged down several times. The Troy-Bilt starts very easily and just never quits. It digs in well and seems to run at a higher speed than the Mantis. It's light-weight and easy to handle, even when digging through sod. To break up a large section of lawn for a garden, a larger roto-tiller definitely is needed, but the little Troy-Bilt will dig up small strips of lawn with little difficulty. I've also noticed in some of the reviews that users complain about difficult starting and needing to empty gas that has been left in the tank for several months. Apparently, some people are not aware that gas goes "stale" after not being used for several months. The problem is that the gasoline additives now in use go bad after a period of storage and this adversely affects the volatility of the gasoline. So when any of these gas-powered tools has been out of use for several months, be sure to empty the old and replace it with fresh gas. That's one nice thing about the Troy-Bilt -- it uses straight gas, so there's no need to mix oil and gas (as in the Mantis).

Troy-Bilt TB144 26cc 4-Cycle Gas-Powered Cultivator/Tiller with Edger Attachment Kit
Review by Mike Farris : Surprised at how well it performed

I had talked myself into buying a small rear-tine tiller (my back cannot take the abuse from a large front-tine version) and then I saw this little gadget for ~$200 less. At first I didn't think there was anyway it would be up to the task, but after a fairly thorough literature and market review I decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did.

It cut through the sod with no problems as well as a number of finger thick roots. It only bogged down briefly before it spit out a 1/4 of a brick that it dredged up from the soil.

Pros:
Extremely lightweight--I can carry it with one hand
Very maneuverable--should make cultivating an easy chore
Reasonable cost
4-cyle, no gas/oil to mix
Doesn't take up a lot of storage room
Fairly quiet
EASY ON THE BACK
Removeable tines--quick and easy cleaning

Cons:
Small tilling width--takes more time per square foot tillage
Fast idle on running tank dry--SAFETY ISSUE (more on this below)

I was allowing the tank to run dry while I finished the raking and planting. Suddenly the idle began to run up as the tank ran out; when it did the centrifugal clutch engaged and the tiller tried to take off. Admittedly it wouldn't have gone far because it ran out of gas almost immediately after I snagged the handle, but it is something to consider.

Bottom line: I would not want to do a large garden with it. Mine is 5' x 15' and took me about 3 hours to till, rake and plant. At the end of that time I was still in pretty decent shape, pleasantly tired, but not beat up.