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My most important tool.
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Posted: Jul/07/2007 6:18 AM PST
Back story: In MI, I had low land clay. Not horrible clay. It was heavy, but rich and dark. I can thank all the huge oak trees I had there for that. No stones ever! Unless baked dry from summer heat, it was easy to dig. If I needed to dig or weed then, I gave it a good soaking the day before. Present: Here in TN, I have red clay, hard-pack sand, and ROCK! Digging a hole is a major operation. So much so, that I dread it. I can't go an inch without hitting stone. I've come to root-prune hard when planting something new as it frustrates me to dig a bigger hole. Luckily, most potted perennials and trees can handle my abuse of their roots. I never buy anything bigger than a 3 gal pot. I just couldn't do it!!! My most important tool is now a big ole flat-head screwdriver. I call it BFS, and the F doesn't necessarily stand for flat-head.  It's industrial strength and about 20" long. I acquired it somewhere long ago, and never used it for much more than a pry bar. It now automatically goes with me when digging. I don't have the power to dig this ground with a regular shovel. I do it on my knees. I loosen the soil and stone with the BFS, and then move it out with a hand shovel. I don't know how people dig holes for fence posts, etc, around here! 
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Posted: Jul/29/2007 10:24 AM PST
Your post is a riot!! BFS ~ I love it! Hey ~ whatever works. I sometimes get tired of walking back to the barn to get this or that tool, so I just use what I have on me. My favorite tool this year is a combo claw-n-spade thingie I got in a garden swap on recipezaar. It was a handy dandy little number UNTIL I heard about the BFS ~ now I gotta have one. Something tells me Mark has one in that big ol' honkin' toolbox and it's gonna go missing  . I have the red clay too, but not so many stones except where the idjit that had the house before us put down landscaping gravel ~ even THAT will stop a shovel. I have spent the last two years trying to get rid of it stone by stone. Now I just make up my mind that if I want something planted somewhere, THAT'S where it's gonna go, clay and stone or NO! |
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Posted: Aug/02/2007 8:06 PM PST
I know what you mean about the rock! It's horrible. I live over a network of caves, and it takes forever just to dig a small hole. I've just been using a garden spade and a screwdriver myself, but not nearly as long as yours. There's no point in using a shovel. I have also had to hire a teenage boy to do some digging for me. My neighbor says she uses a pickaxe and that breaks it right up, but I'd probably pickaxe my foot and wind up in the hospital! |
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Posted: Aug/03/2007 7:35 AM PST
That's the tough way to get flowers, too.
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