How many times have you walked out to your garden, only to find it covered in weeds? If you’re anything like me and have lots of things going on at any given point in time, this is a regular occurrence for you. While part of gardening has always been weeding, it’s easily the least enjoyable part of the entire process.
Franklin Robotics has a new robot that directly addresses that issue and will hopefully give many folks several hours of their weekends back. It also helps keep unneeded herbicides out of the garden since Tertill’s weeding process is a fully mechanically-driven method.
Tertill is a little round, green robot that roams through your garden all week long and takes care of those little annoying weed sprouts for you. Tertill was created by the same mind behind the Roomba, Joe Jones. Joe and his company Franklin Robotics ran a successful Kickstarter campaign and, after shipping out to all original backers, has now made Tertill available for public purchase on their website for $299.
Tertill is made to roam around the garden throughout the day, every day of the week, seeking out small weeds that pop up and cut them down.
Tertill’s shape and design allow it to work well in the harsher climate of a garden, where the hot sun beats down on it throughout the day. Instead of causing distress though, the sun charges Tertill’s battery throughout the day thanks to a large solar panel on its roof. Tertill runs in increments of 20 minutes at a time, seeking out new growth and then charging in between cycles. Tertill is also waterproof and isn’t harmed during storms, so there’s very little maintenance to deal with.
Tertill’s 4-wheel drive system features wheels that are placed at a diagonal, facing inward. This, coupled with the finned design of the wheels themselves, helps Tertill move around effortlessly in the soil and keeps it from getting stuck in places that normal wheel designs would. It’s also got plenty of sensors to detect whether or not a rock got lodged in a groove, or if it’s about to tip over thanks to a steeper elevation of a hill or other structure within the garden.
Tertill is designed to cut plants shorter than one inch high, so any of those plants you actually tried to place in the soil will go unharmed. If you’ve got some seedlings that need protection, Tertill ships with a few “cones” that allow the plant to grow unhindered and keep Tertill from running them over.
Tertill connects to an app on modern smartphones via Bluetooth, ensuring that status reports can be read when needed. There’s no mapping software for Tertill since it is designed to only cut plants smaller than an inch high, and follows the outline of your garden’s fence (or raised bed wall).
Tertill isn’t just good for keeping your garden more organic than before, it also helps with folks who might have mobility issues and cannot constantly kneel down or bend over to keep weeds at bay. Check out Tertill at the website below, and we hope to bring you a full review of Tertill in the near future.