Does anyone have any experience of using the Mantis 4 stroke tiller/cultivator. Is it as good as the manufacturer makes out? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks Ron Collins

You'll find some archived discussion on this Ron. In summary, the camp divides into those who love them (like Chantal and me) and those who don't. It depends largely on what you want to use it for and what type of ground.

I find it's light to use and very controllable. However, now that my raised beds are rarely dug over, just weeded and manured, I only get the Mantis out when I'm making a new bed or wanting to get the soil to a very fine tilth.

Hello Ron
As Tigger says there should be quite a bit of stuff in the archives as this came up last year. The Mantis is heavily promoted in all the mags but there are plenty of other types of this machine around on the block. I have a Honda FG200, similar to Mantis, and wouldn't be without it. There should be some of my postings on it about in the archives.
The thing to remember is that they are small tillers designed for producing a good tilth on cultivated soil - excellent for tasks like seed bed preparation, incorporating manure and fertilzer, and getting beds ready for planting up. I also run mine between the rows of potatoes so that earthing-up is much easier. They are not rotovators like Merrytillers and can't do the sort of work that these big machines can tackle.

John