Tilling With The Sun Joe TJ600E Tiller

Sun Joe TJ600E Tillersun joe tj600e tiller

 

Warning! Using a Sun Joe Tiller will save you back pain and speed up the job. If you are into back ache … do not buy one of these!

 

The Sun Joe TJ600E Tiller is designed for one thing in mind … to make life easier by digging and turning over soil. That’s its only role in life and the Sun Joe TJ600E Tiller does it extremely well with it’s  powerful 6.5 amp motor. and 4 angled steel blades.

 

First a few Details:

  • Powerful 6.5 amp motor driving 4 angled steel blades (tines).
  • Weighs only 17 pounds and is well balanced for easy use.
  • 14 inch digging width.  7 inch digging depth.
  • ETL approved with safety start switch.
  • Two year warranty with great customer service.
  • Easy assembly and folding handles for storage.

 

So why did I get a Sun Joe TJ600E tiller?

Well, I needed to turn over my vegetable patch but my back said “You must be joking”. I was really not looking forward to a few hours digging and two days nursing my back so my ‘better half’ suggested I try an electric tiller as they are not overly expensive and the Sun Joe TJ600E Tiller came well within my budget. That was the best decision I made this year. Twenty minutes tilling and I ended up with a super fine tilth that I could never have got with a spade.

Before I started I covered the vegetable patch with compost and a fine sprinkling of dried 6x manure so not only did I get the digging done, I turned in all the goodness all in one go … easiest I have ever achieved.

At the start.

When the Sun Joe TJ600E Tiller first arrived it took very little time to assemble the handles as there are only a few screws and nuts to fit and tighten and the cable to secure. Anyone with the least bit of mechanical knowhow could assemble this in less than  half an hour and being only 17 pounds weight, it is easy to carry into the garden.

The first thing I noticed when I started to use the Sun Joe was the lack of noise compared to my friends gas driven tiller and I thought it was a bit too lightweight to make any impression but I soon learned that if you hold it in one place to let it ‘dig in’ then it made short work of the vegetable patch. Letting it ‘dig in’ then moving backwards did the best job and tilling the patch twice got even deeper.

OK, so it did the vegetable patch without fuss or overheating but that was reasonably loose soil so what would it be like on hard clay?

The Sun Joe TJ600E Tiller on hard clay.

I had repositioned my path of paving slabs to align with my new shed (door in different position) and that had been down for at least 25 years on a good solid clay base so what was under the paving was hard … and I mean HARD! If anything was going to test the Sun Joe TJ600E Tiller then this was it.
I dug out the visible big stones and cement and started the tiller which immediately jumped and bounced until it got a grip then it just ate the clay. I did have to hold it a bit firmer (that took wrist strength) and I did have to cover the area twice to get down about 6 inches but it took very little time even though it did throw clay about until it was deep enough to stop bouncing and just eat it’s way through.

Again, pulling it backwards worked best and on the second pass I covered it with compost, tilled it in and was able to seed it all within a fraction of the time I would normally have taken with the old trusty spade.

What do I think of the Sun Joe TJ600E Tiller?

Good :

  • Easier on your back and body in general.
  • Easy to assemble and use.
  • Makes digging with a spade a thing of the past
  • Powerful enough motor for the task.
  • Quieter than a gas driven equivalent.
  • Perfect for the “more mature” gardener.
  • Small enough to till flower borders and between vegetable rows.

Bad :

  • Could be a bit heavier … but not too much.
  • Does tend to throw the dirt about when it starts.
  • Needs a bit of wrist strength in hard ground. (though you could till a bit at a time)

When all’s said and done, the Sun Joe TJ600E Tiller is something I would recommend to any gardener with a smallish garden and especially for the older gardener that can’t dig like they used to.(That’s me!)

Just remember, this great little electric tiller is not designed to till acres of fields. It is a home use tiller but will do a good sized garden with out any trouble and all without back ache!

Now all I need to do is get it back from my daughter-in-law!

Yes. Even though she is slim built, she finds it easy to use so I would also recommend the Sun Joe TJ600E Tiller for the lady gardeners.

 

 

Sun Joe TJ600E Tiller Buy Button

 

 

 

 

 

 

Autumn and Winter Make-over with the Sun Joe TJ600E

It’s that time again to get the Sun Joe TJ600 tiller out from the shed and put it to good use by turning in a good helping of manure to over winter in the soil ready for the Spring planting. Why do a back breaking job the hard way when the Sun Joe tiller will ease your burden?

Treat all the weeds before hand with a good safe killer like Roundup then, a few days later, cover all the patch with manure and till the whole lot in, in one fell swoop. Easy as pie! Everything killed, fertilized and turned ready for Jack Frost to do his bit. This is an important part of the growing game as Mother Nature provides her own way of killing off all those nasties that have buried themselves to over winter. Bringing them to the surface as the cold spell starts soon sorts the little beasties out and leaves your veg patch pest free for the next season. Why struggle when Mother Nature does it for you?

Providing the ground has not frozen solid, it doesn’t hurt to give it another tilling later on before all the frost is finished for the year just to get the last of the pests that tried to go deep again. You will never kill them all but you will thin them out. Don’t worry about the worms … they don’t “sleep” so will just go deep as soon as they feel the cold.

Tilling also exposes weed roots to the frost and that sorts them out as well … just like frostbite on your toes!

How much work is all this? Very little if you use the Sun Joe but it can be like hard labour if you do it all by spade and fork. Not that that is a bad thing if you want good exercise but if, like me, you are getting on in life, you want the easy option. Been there, done that!

Also on the list of things to do … protect the vulnerable plants from frost. I just had a pleasant surprise when a old over-ripe apricot that was in the fridge for too long burst into life when I put the whole thing into a patio pot. It thought winter was over when it came out of the fridge so now I will have to bring the little idiot indoors for winter. I’ll evict him in early Spring and let him harden up for next year.

 

 

 

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