Millions of American households have home gardens where they plant edible and ornamental plants. Anyone who owns a garden knows that weeds or unwanted plants always sprout and they need to be removed from the garden regularly.
Tertill is a robot made specifically for weeding home gardens. Equipped with a solar panel and a weatherproof shell, the robot can work throughout the season fuelled by the sun.
With Tertill, you can be sure that your plants don’t have to compete with weeds for sunlight, nutrients in the soil, and moisture.
Tertill saves gardeners from having to use mulching, applying dangerous weed killers, or using plastic in their gardens. Many people are just too busy to find the time to weed their home gardens.
Tertill founder Joe Jones put together a dream team of expert roboticists who worked together to design a robot that could differentiate between weeds and plants, could run on solar power, navigate the outdoors, and run efficiently enough.
Years of testing and experimenting yielded Tertill. Jones was joined by Hellen Greiner who co-founded iRobot.
It is now safe to say that the massive investment in Tertill paid off. Weed control specialists and home gardeners across the country have taken to Tertill.
The Cornell School of Agriculture compared weeding with Tertill to hand weeding and found that it was just as effective.
Tertill turns over the soil’s upper layer, getting rid of pre-emergent weeds. It also gets rid of sprouted weeds by cutting them down using a trimmer and preventing photosynthesis.
Weeding daily with Tertill kills weeds before they can go to seed and soon there won’t be enough weed seeds in your garden to pose a threat to your plants.
Finally, your plants won’t have to compete for resources with weeds and they will thrive. The dead weeds will decompose and recycle nutrients.
Every robot comes with two sets of plant guards to prevent Tertill from accidentally mowing down one of your plants. Tertill cuts down smaller plants and you can use the plant guards to protect a smaller plant that you desire from getting mowed down. You can order extra plant guards if the ones you get are not enough.
Pros
• Tertill is designed for the outdoors and can live in the garden pretty much all through the season.
• The robot prevents soil compaction from foot traffic by keeping gardens from stepping into their garden. Tertill is a lightweight tool that will not compact the soil.
• Tertill runs on solar power and users don’t have to charge it. You only have to leave it out in the sun.
• Tertill allows gardeners to weed their gardens as often as they need to with minimal effort.
Cons
• Because Tertill runs on the solar energy harnessed by its solar panel, the robot will have to run on a reduced schedule during cloudy days.
• Tertill can only handle gardens measuring around 100 square feet. It may be able to go up to 200 square feet. It will depend on the type of weed and the amount of sunlight.
• Tertill is not ideal for gardens with large rocks, thick clay, deep holes, or thick and deep mud. The ideal garden should not have a slope of more than 10% grade to allow Tertill to navigate easily.
• You need a barrier around your garden to keep Tertill from straying. Any edging of three inches or taller should do.