[harry]

I was thinking of buying a petrol mantis tiller for my allotment but it seems a bit expensive, wheres the best place to buy it. My allotment has a lot of stones if you hit one with the Mantis will it wreck the blades.

[mikem]

I bought mine at an auction and certainly very much cheaper!  No problem with the stones apart from now and again one gets jammed between the tines and the machine - a screwdriver sorts that out.  I wish I had bought one years ago, even if I had to pay full price.  It is so much easier than digging and it does make a good tilth even on my clay soil. 

[corynsboy]

I am very lucky as my society has a collection of rotivators.   We have a Honda 200 which weighs a ton and even with my relative youth and not inconsiderable strength, I don't bother using it.  We also have a couple of Mantis rotivators one new this year and one about six years old.

There are a few things that you should know before you part with your hard earned.

IMHO. The Mantis OK.  But only OK.  Once you've dug over the plot and want to prepare the bed and get a nice fine tilth then use a mantis.   It's great for that.  You use different muscle groups for holding the mantis than  for your spade so it can be a bit hard work for some people.

The mantis is not an earth mover, and it will skip off hard ground without making a dent, it will be choked by weeds longer than a couple of inches and will spin on the spot in wet ground. 

The mantis' we have are pretty bullet proof and as long as you don't hit a lump of granite  or something that won’t move under th soil it should be fine.  (Another good reason for digging over first).  The tines on the blades will bend from time to time.   Buy a good hammer and hit them gently once it has been removed from the hub. 

We send ours away to be serviced every other year.  Mantis are pretty good for service turn arounds and it's worth the £60 charge (inc P&P)

If you can get the Society to spring for a couple of Mantis’ or have a society fund raiser to buy a couple that can be used by the whole society then they might be worth while. 

I think that "the wanting in more than the having" for any rotivator.  They will not turn your scrub into a freshly ploughed field.  They take time and good technique to master and they can be loud, dangerous and heavy.  I think that in general are not as good as a decent garden fork which costs £15.

Ebay might have a couple going cheap.

[lucywil]

my hubby has an alko farmer but i cant use it, it is far to heavy for me but he gets on well with it. i have often thought i would like a mantis tiller but it would only be for preparing the beds once they had been dug, one of the guys at our allotment has one and he has gone over his whole plot with it but it has hardly made any impact, so i think they are definately better suited to smaller areas once the heavy work has been done.

[blackbob]

had a mantis on trial a few years back,waste of space if you ask me and well overpriced.
if you like flinging soil all over the garden paths then this is the perfect lightweight machine for you lol.

[harry]

I dug all my beds by hand but i thought a mantis would just finish it off but not at £300 

[Digger Tom]

 Buy a second hand rotovator from Ebay, then spend some tlc getting it goining well. I have a Merry Tiller cadat made in 1976. After a bit of spending on some spares & chatting to my local mower place I now have a fully functioning very powerful machine for just under £110.

 You can do this with rotovators because they only really get used for 10 hours or so a year so do not wear out, unlike mowers.

[Kristen]

I use my 4-Stroke Mantis on all the beds around this time of the year. They are all "lazy raised beds"so not walked on, and thus not compacted, but they are clay so not naturally "light and fluffy" []

mantis goes through them in no time and makes the job easy (albeit that working backwards is a bit strange, as you cannot offset the handlebars to work from one-side, like a normal Roatavator). Its nice to have a machine that I can use when the conditions are right - previously used to hire one, and it always rained that day!

Also use it to stir / break up the muck heap, mix the compost / muck / soil I replace in the greenhouse beds, and keep meaning to try the gadget that came with it to cut the lawn edges ...

I imagine it would be useless for virgin / hard ground.

I got mine from eBay from the Mantis Factory Outlet (machines returned under no-quibble-warranty I think). The ebay shop name clearly made it clear that it was the factory outlet - in case that helps you find it.