Getting ready for planting season is an exciting time. You get to choose the types of seeds you want to sow, debate whether you prefer your cucumbers to grow next to tomatoes or lettuce, and figure out just how many bell peppers you’ll need for making salsa later in the season.
However, there’s one aspect to planting season that many gardeners dread—aerating the soil. Even small gardens take a lot of arm strength if you’re a brave soul who decides to go at it the old-fashioned way with a hoe. Luckily, tillers make preparing your soil for planting quick and easy.
In this article, we’ll offer you a Sun Joe TJ604E electric garden tiller review, so you understand its strengths and areas of improvement to see if this is the right tiller for your garden.
Sun Joe TJ604E Overview
The Sun Joe TJ604E electric tiller cuts deep into soil packed down from a long winter or time without being cared for. It offers a wide range despite its small size, saving you time so that you don’t have to go back and forth in your garden as much.
With easy assembly and a low maintenance design, the Sun Joe TJ604E is a fantastic option for gardeners. A two-year warranty offers peace of mind, and since this is an electric tiller, you don’t have to worry about the costs and inconvenience of filling up a gas tiller.
Assembling the Sun Joe TJ604E
There is some assembling required to get your Sun Joe electric tiller up and running, but it’s minimal. You’ll need to screw in some knobs and bolts. Within ten minutes, you should be good to go!
Sun Joe offers easy-to-use instructions, which take the guesswork out of which parts go where; the parts have letters on them to make identification a breeze during assembly.
Sun Joe TJ604E Specifications
Before you decide to purchase the Sun Joe, you surely want to get a feel for its specifications. Below are the must-know details about this tiller:
- Total weight when assembled is around 27 pounds
- 13.5-amp motor
- Tills soil up to 8 inches deep
- Tills a width of 16 inches
- Six angled tines
- 43 inches high
- Collapsible handle
- Instant start button
- Safety switch
A 27-pound weight is about average for a home garden tiller. Thanks to a three-position rear wheel adjustment, you’ll be able to operate the TJ604E like a manual lawnmower.
If you’re not a tiller expert like most, the six angled tines offer extra soil rotation. That way, you should only have to pass through any given part of your garden only one time with your tiller.
Once you’re ready to tuck your tiller away for the season, all you have to do is fold down the collapsible handles. Its sleek design makes it easy to store until you need to pull it back out for next year.
Stand Out Features With the Sun Joe TJ604E
While no machinery is ever entirely maintenance-free, the Sun Joe electric tiller is about as maintenance-free as tillers come. Since they’re not gas-operated, they don’t require oil changes and draining the fuel before storing it for the winter. Once you’ve finished using your tiller for the season, simply make sure to clean it off with a towel and keep it in a dry place.
Tillers are one of those pieces of equipment in a garage that you usually only pull out once a year. For this reason, Sun Joe did an outstanding job designing their tiller, so the handle folds down, making it easy to tuck away until next season.
If you keep your Sun Joe tiller clean and dry, you can expect it to last you many years. However, should you encounter any issues with it, you can take advantage of a two-year warranty.
Other notable features of the Sun Joe electric tiller include adjustable wheel positions to control how deep you till your soil. Someday, it might even have a model with straight driving control, although that’s still in the “tilling works.” It also has a quick start switch, a robust steel construction, and is rust-resistant.
Challenges With the Sun Joe TJ604E
As an electric tiller, you won’t have to worry about stocking up on gasoline or inhaling unhealthy fumes as you use your Sun Joe TJ604E. However, you’ll need to plug it into an outlet since most people don’t have outlets hanging out in their gardens. You’ll need to provide your own extension cord—potentially a really long one.
The fact that you need to plug in the Sun Joe electric tiller is one of its only disadvantages. However, there’s one more drawback related to it—you’ll need to take care when tilling, or else you could run over the cord. It’s certainly not the ideal situation, but it’s easy enough to adjust to it. Since there are so many upsides to owning an electric tiller, most people are willing to overlook the cord inconvenience.
Tips for using the Sun Joe TJ604E
Before you head to your garden with your new Sun Joe TJ604E tiller, there are a few things the company wants you to note. After all, this is an electrical machine, so it’s critical to take the appropriate safety precautions. The following are Sun Joe’s recommendations:
- Pull back long hair
- Wear close-toed shoes
- It’s best to wear rubber gloves for good grip
- Avoid wearing loose clothing and dangling pieces of jewelry
- Never carry your tiller with your finger on or near the switch
- Make sure you use an extension cord that’s okay for outdoor use
- Always know the location of your extension cord, so you don’t till over it
- Keep children and pets away from the tilling site
- Till in the daylight to avoid rocks and other objects
Wrap Up
We hope this Sun Joe TJ604E electric garden tiller review gets you excited about tilling your garden and offering you a deeper understanding of the many great qualities that Sun Joe’s tiller offers. Small home gardens with tough-to-till soil will benefit from this till’s eight-inch-deep cut. The tiller is light enough to carry around and compacts well for storing after planting season.