The Tiller

Right then, kettle on, feet up, and let me tell you about this week… the sort of week that starts with promise, throws in a frost for good measure, and then finishes by emptying the contents of the North Sea straight onto the allotment.

What a week once more.

We had the  frosts, the kind that make everything look lovely at six in the morning and absolutely murderous by nine. The grass crunches underfoot, the soil looks innocent enough, and for a brief moment you think, “Ah yes, winter gardening, crisp and calm.” And then—because this is Britain—it rains. Not polite rain. Not a passing shower. Oh no. This was hours of downpour, the sort that soaks you through emotionally as well as physically.

By the end of it the ground wasn’t soil anymore. It was glue. Sticky, claggy, boot-stealing glue. You take one step and the earth tries to claim your wellies as its own. Another step and it’s whispering, “Stay… forever.” There will be no gardening this weekend.

And honestly? I’m not even that annoyed about it.

Because this year—brace yourselves—I’ve made a decision.

I’m going to use a machine, if possible, to save my back.

I know. Shock horror. Somewhere an old-school allotment purist has just dropped their tea in disgust. But hear me out. I’ve always enjoyed the hard graft. I really have. There’s something deeply satisfying about turning soil by hand, feeling the resistance, knowing you’ve earned your cuppa. And more than that, I’ve loved the time spent digging with Sam.

We’ve stood side by side on those plots for years, spades in hand, backs bent, talking about everything and nothing. We must have turned over tons of soil between us. Literal tons. If there were an Olympic event for “digging until you can’t feel your legs,” we’d at least have a certificate.

Those were good days. Hard days, but good ones.

But time, as it has a nasty habit of doing, marches on. Backs creak a bit louder. Knees complain earlier in the day. And these days, after a full shift at work, my spine has less enthusiasm for heroics. So this year I’ve decided: if there’s a machine that can help, I’m using it. Pride is all well and good, but I’d quite like to still be upright at the end of the season.

Which brings me neatly to my little Mantis tiller.

Now I love this machine. It’s one of my favourite bits of kit up the allotment. Small, reliable, and far tougher than it looks—rather like some of the old boys who’ve been gardening longer than I’ve been alive. After a long, hard summer of work, though, it was looking… tired. A bit sluggish. Reluctant to start. And absolutely filthy.

So out it came for its annual service.

There’s something almost therapeutic about laying out tools on the bench, especially on a miserable wet day when the allotment is off-limits. The Mantis looked like it had been dredged from a canal. Soil everywhere. Old grease. Dust in places dust should never be. It had earned the mess, to be fair.

First job off with the carburettor.

Now I know some people see carbs as dark magic. Tiny passages, little screws, things that vanish the second you drop them. But I quite enjoy it. A good clean does wonders. Everything stripped down carefully, sprayed through, passages cleared, and reassembled with the sort of concentration that only comes from knowing one wrong move will have you swearing for an hour.

Put it all back together, fuel on, choke set… and nothing.

Well. Something. But not much.

It would cough, splutter, give me hope, then die again like it had remembered it was winter and couldn’t be bothered. This is where patience is tested and tea consumption increases.

Turns out it was the high and low screws. The idle was set too low to start properly. Just a tiny adjustment on the low screw—barely a fraction of a turn—and suddenly it burst into life like it had something to prove. Away it went, purring nicely, as if to say, “See? Told you I was fine.”

That moment, when an engine finally behaves after you’ve had your hands inside it, never gets old. It’s a small victory, but I’ll take it.

With the tiller running sweetly again, my thoughts turned to tines.

Up until now I’ve only had the small set—the trenching tines, I think they’re called. Perfectly fine, they’ve done sterling work, but I’ve been fancying a set of proper digging tines for a while. If I’m going to let a machine do some of the heavy lifting, I may as well let it do the job properly.

So, like any modern gardener with muddy boots and a slightly dangerous amount of curiosity, I went onto eBay and Amazon.

Now this is always a gamble. You can lose hours of your life scrolling, convincing yourself you need things you absolutely don’t. But after a bit of searching—and a bit of luck—I found a set of original Mantis digging tines on eBay, and at a bargain price too.

I did that thing where you check the photos far too closely. Zoom in. Squint. Read the description three times. Wonder if “good condition” means actually good or good if you’re blind. In the end, I took the plunge and ordered them.

And credit where it’s due—they arrived two days later, well packed and in genuinely good condition. No cracks, no excessive wear, and clearly looked after. Result.

There’s something deeply pleasing about finding original parts, especially these days when everything seems to be made of hope and thin metal. These had weight to them. Proper engineering. The sort of thing that’ll outlast me if I keep the grease up.

So now, with the Mantis serviced, running nicely, and sporting its new (old) digging tines, I’m actually quite excited about the coming weeks—weather permitting, of course. Once the ground dries out enough to stop impersonating a swamp, I’ll be ready.

Will I miss the full-on hand digging? A bit, yes. Will I miss the aching back and the feeling that my spine has been folded like a deckchair? Not one bit.

Gardening changes as you do. The heart stays the same, but the methods adapt. And there’s no shame in that. The important thing is still getting down there, still turning soil—whether by hand or by machine—and still enjoying every minute of it.

For now though, with rain hammering down and frost lurking, the allotment can have a rest. The tools are serviced, the plans are forming, and I’m indoors with a cup of tea, listening to the weather do its worst.

Next week, who knows. Britain might surprise us.

But I won’t hold my breath.