Lawn & Garden Tilling

[picframer]

This all started a week ago when I decided my own lawn needed to be tilled, top soil and sod, I have just over 36,000 sq/feet to do so it will be in stages. First step was to remove rocks, they seem to grow here like bad weeds, next was to rent a tiller for one of the tractors, wanted a PTO driven unit as they are up to 6 feet wide. Well not one rental place in my area wents them, biggest tiller I could find was a 24" walk behind, tried John Deere, they only had one new 53" wide around, nothing used, so I told them to hold it. Next I placed in this Newspaper that has been giving me amazing results, $18.50 to run an ad in the Classifieds for a month, paper came out this morning, four calls already so I bought the tiller this afternoon as there seems to be demand. I pick it up tomorrow and hopefully start my lawn on Sunday. It will work on four of our tractors which is great, I am thinking I need a bigger parking lot now for all these attachments

Attached Images

Tiller1.jpg (51.8 KB, 9 views)

[turfmaster]

Lawn care business tips

Garden Tilling has been my savior this year. I picked up 3 jobs today. So far I have done 10 rototilling jobs this season and I suspect it will get better in the next few weeks as it gets closer to planting time. Lawn Care sucks in my area. To many $20.00 guys running around. I also have got some landscaping jobs lined up for the next few weeks. I too have gotten my tilling jobs also from the local community newspaper. Pretty good money in it also. I been averaging at least $1.00/min tilling.

---

Last edited by turfmaster; 05-01-2009 at 05:10 PM.

[picframer]

Originally Posted by turfmaster

Garden Tilling has been my savior this year. I picked up 3 jobs today. So far I have done 10 rototilling jobs this season and I suspect it will get better in the next few weeks as it gets closer to planting time. Lawn Care sucks in my area. To many $20.00 guys running around. I also have got some landscaping jobs lined up for the next few weeks. I too have gotten my tilling jobs also from the local community newspaper. Pretty good money in it also.
I been averaging at least $1.00/min tilling.

Same problem here, Mini Excavation followed by Spraying has been keeping us humming, a few other small jobs, yard cleaning, wood chipping, driveway leveling etc. no mowing at all. I am up to 10 inquiries this evening for tilling which is great, just have to keep finding other services we can offer.

Even deck construction here is cut throat, I pulled everything other than the website that lists deck construction. The quality of work in many cases is very poor however decks are not inspected. I did a drainage job yesterday, the lady had a deck built three weeks ago, over 24 feet there is a 2" drop, she wanted me to fix it as the deck company is not returning her calls but I passed as I don't want this to be my problem.

[swstout]

Originally Posted by picframer

Same problem here, Mini Excavation followed by Spraying has been keeping us humming, a few other small jobs, yard cleaning, wood chipping, driveway leveling etc. no mowing at all. I am up to 10 inquiries this evening for tilling which is great, just have to keep finding other services we can offer.

Even deck construction here is cut throat, I pulled everything other than the website that lists deck construction. The quality of work in many cases is very poor however decks are not inspected. I did a drainage job yesterday, the lady had a deck built three weeks ago, over 24 feet there is a 2" drop, she wanted me to fix it as the deck company is not returning her calls but I passed as I don't want this to be my problem.

I just came back from a lawn tilling quote. I bid to do RoundUp on entire lot. Till entire lot and blade flatten. Garden's Magic soil treat ment for entire lot. Lime for entire lot. Re-seed with a quality Burmuda grass.

Bid $1,104.00 Material and Equipment Rental
$1,350.00 Labor
$88.32 tax

A total of $2,542.32

He gave me a $1,000.00 depost.

A further note. He showed me all the equipment he purchased for lawn care and never used. He had a Fimco pull behind 25 gal sprayer still in the box I bought for $150.00.

Steve

[picframer]

Originally Posted by swstout

A further note. He showed me all the equipment he purchased for lawn care and never used. He had a Fimco pull behind 25 gal sprayer still in the box I bought for $150.00.

Steve

Now that is a smoking deal, I paid $280.00 just for the hand pull 8 gallon Fimco sprayers, they make excellent equipment, these pull units will spray for 15 hours between charging.

anyhow congradulations once again, you are on a roll bud!

[Steve]

Well not one rental place in my area wents them, biggest tiller I could find was a 24" walk behind, tried John Deere, they only had one new 53" wide around, nothing used, so I told them to hold it.

Next I placed in this Newspaper that has been giving me amazing results, $18.50 to run an ad in the Classifieds for a month, paper came out this morning, four calls already so I bought the tiller this afternoon as there seems to be demand.

Let me get this straight. You wanted to till your lawn. You looked to buy a used tiller. Because you couldn't find one, you wanted to see if others needed the service so you put an ad in the paper that said what? Roto Tilling Service - Call 555-0232? Or how did you test the waters?

This is genius!

[swstout]

Originally Posted by picframer

Well not one rental place in my area wents them, biggest tiller I could find was a 24" walk behind, tried John Deere, they only had one new 53" wide around, nothing used, so I told them to hold it.

The local Ace Hardware rents them. I rented one today (pick up Saturday morning). A Kubota 3130 tractor with a 60" tiller on the back and a bos blade on the front.
Rental $327.00
SC tax $26.16
Deposit $100.00
Maintenance Fee 10% $32.70
Total $485.80 $385.80 without deposit. I pick it up at 8:00am Saturday and return it at 8:00am Monday. I have reserved it for the next 3 weekends - all for sold jobs with deposits large enough to cover the rental and a good deal of the needed material.

In the last 3 days I have given 25 estimates for lawn mowing and 2 estimates for lawn replacements. Sold 1 mowing job and both new lawn jobs!

Steve

[Steve]

Steve,

Have you checked out how much a used tractor would be in your area? Would you like that one day?

[Steve W]

I have reserved it for the next 3 weekends - all for sold jobs with deposits large enough to cover the rental and a good deal of the needed material.

In the last 3 days I have given 25 estimates for lawn mowing and 2 estimates for lawn replacements. Sold 1 mowing job and both new lawn jobs!

This Dude is on FIRE!!!

[picframer]

Originally Posted by Steve

Let me get this straight. You wanted to till your lawn. You looked to buy a used tiller. Because you couldn't find one, you wanted to see if others needed the service so you put an ad in the paper that said what? Roto Tilling Service - Call 555-0232? Or how did you test the waters?

This is genius!

Before I bought the tiller, due to the cost, I had two options when I discovered I could not rent or buy a used one for the tractors, hire someone to till mine as I wasn't going to do it manually however I could not find anyone, so to test the waters I ran the following Advertisement in the local paper under the classifieds, it worked so I bought the tiller and it's off tomorrow to start, I have enough work to keep it going every day this week and into next, even with labour costs it will be paid for.

This ad is partially true, I did have two customers I did work for ask for tilling but the actual goal was to see how much interest there was. Now keep in mind we are still a month to six weeks away from garden planting so people haven't really started thinking about tilling yet.

The Ad:

We are expanding the services offered to clients and have added a 53” Garden & Lawn tiller, if your garden needs to be tilled or perhaps you would like to till the lawn under and reseed or sod, our 53" wide tiller allows us to do this quickly for you, you will have a professionally tilled and flat lawn or garden when we are finished. As always estimates are free. Visit our website at www.oakridgeyardcare.ca