the drill till: a product review

I recently had the chance to beta test a new garden tool called the Drill Till. I was asked to do so in www.drilltill.com.

using the Drill Till

exchange for feedback. I was not asked to write a product review, but I was not discouraged from doing so when I brought up the possibility. For more information, check their here.




The Drill Till is designed to make weeding and aerating easier. It consists of a long rod (that you attach to a power drill) and several circular "heads" that you attach to the other end. Using drillpower, you till the soil (hence the name -- duh), or break up weeds, etc. You save effort in two ways (or at least two -- two are obvious to me). The drill does the work of tearing up the soil
or weeds, and you save yourself the effort of bending down with a trowel.


So how did it work? Long story short, the DT (at least the version I tested) is good enough that I want it to be better.


First the good. I have raised tomato beds, and the DT was great for aerating the soil in those beds and for mixing tomato food into that soil. Also, the DT was reasonably good for killing weeds (including dandelions with the special dandelion killer attachment) as long as you're working with soil that doesn't have plants you like.

the dandelion head

But you have to know the limitations. The DT is good for preparing soil for planting. But once you already have your plants growing you can't use it as a weeder, since it's really not designed for fine touches. Also, when I was preparing the tomato beds there were dried pulpy tomato stems from last year's crop. I was hoping that the DT would make fast work of them, mulching them back into the soil. No such luck. The old stems got tangled up in the teeth of the tiller, and I had to pull them out, then get down on my hands and knees and pull up the rest by hand.

The other drawback of the DT is a design issue. On the model I tested, changing heads was a pain. It involved screws with hexagonal heads, and wrenches, and having to hold one side in place with one wrench while turning the other side with the other wrench. That alone is enough to keep me from making good use of the tool. I have been told by the developers that they have modified the design to make changing heads easier. A change like that could, in my mind, make all the difference.


While I'm here, I would like to mention something else about using the DT. I find that the long stick part tends not to stay straight as I use the tool. At that point, the head starts making a small circle around the point where it should stay. I found I could mitigate that by  holding the shaft steady with my hand (maybe six inches down from the drill). Of course, that's probably against all advisable safety rules, and I doubt they'd recommend such reckless behavior.