After tilling with a 14" rear tine tiller for 3 years I bought a 6' tiller for my tractor. Let me tell you it is money well spent. Other than the obvious time and labor saving. It reall dose a much nicer job making a nice fine and smooth seed bed that makes the earth way seeder very nice to plant with.

The earth way seeder makes planting quick and easy. Just pick the plate that corresponds with what you are planting and adjust the space on the fold down roll marker fill with seeds and walk. I picked mine up used and am so happy now that I believe full retail would even be a bargain .

With those two tools I easily got done in a few hours what normally should have been two days. Time spent playing with the kids was much more fun. Not only that but so much aggravation fighting the tiller and trying to get spacing right. If your on the fence about either of these or are looking to spend less time working in the garden buy them. You won't be sorry.


I'm going to have fun with food plots for both deer and bees this year now. That tiller will make it possible

I'm with you as well on the tractor tiller. Though mine is just 4'. I still use a push plow and hoe as well.

The earthway has two faults, lightweight and no coulter. It does not want to track straight on anything but fine powder soils. Any clods or uneven ground and it's all over the map. No coulter means any trash or residue hangs up on the shoe.

I much prefer the hoss tools seeder but it too lacks a coulter but it tracks straighter on rougher ground, especially the two wheel model. However it's better suited to larger seeds as brassica, carrot and parsnip seed clogs the brushes and holes in the plates. Larger holes don't seem to help. Small seed can also slip under the plates and get ground up.

The earthway handles smaller seed better.

I read good things about the jang seeder for small seed.

Mantis

For my money the hoss tool or the older planet jr wheel hoe it copies is well worth the money, especially if you can scrounge up the older cast iron planet jr implements. I use the older middle buster and turning plow for planting and hilling potatoes.
The sweeps are nice if your weeding as you should before the weeds are really sprouted well. The duck feet if you have to rip out larger rooted weeds.

I'd like to find a good well made FORGED and tempered hoe made right.

Do you market garden?,..I have done well in my semi -retirement years with just a tiller and old school planting protocol.
Running an earth way is a time saver, but by how much,.I don't see it as an accessory in the sense that I could seed a hundred foot row in half the time.
Your own labor,in a small enterprise situation will reward you better

Good luck for you with the food plots.

I use my 20 inch rear tine tiller a lot but I too 3 years ago bought a 5 foot tractor mounted rotor tiller and yes that is a very worthwhile tool. I don't own a tractor but the person that has the tractor stores my tiller, tills my gardens and some pasture areas for his being able to till 3 other family gardens. Nice that it works that way.

Bryce

Yes my wife sells a few CSA's and sells excess. We or produce 70+ % of our own food as well. I work out of town 3-4 days at a time... so am always behind when I get home. Add rain and any un expected things that hav a way of pooping up. I will take all the labor and time saving I can get. If tools cost me money so be it. I need some time left for spending with the kids.
To me now time is worth more than money if I were home every day and had more time but less money i would have no problem going the other way. Like I have for previous years. Heck for two years I rented a tiller to save money. Today my scale is larger and time saved going to rent I cant wast.


I planted small seeds today l like lettuce the largest were green beans. The green bean plate did not space correctly and dropped to many seeds.. I used a different plate I can't remember which but it worked perfectly. That tiller made such a smooth flat seed bed it worked well. I can see that it would not hav bee as nice or even useful if I were using my old tiller. I hope it works with larger seeds as well. If not it's well worth the money I spent on it for small seeds alone.. I Will check out the suggestions for larger seeds.

Jangs aren't worth the money for a smaller operation, or really any operation in my opinion. I worked on a commercial veggie farm for years that messed around with different seeding options. Lots of problems with Jangs over the years on root veggies in particular, we lost quite a bit of money a few years trying to get them to work. Earthways are foolproof once you get them dialed in, I still pick up work at the farm here and there and we seed acres of beets and carrots with three earthways ganged on a toolbar behind an old Kubota L245H. They're bulletproof.