| Project by Kindlingmaker | posted 63 days ago | 683 views | 0 times favorited | 8 comments |  |
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Time to plant pole beans. The packet of beans say to plant them 2 inches apart and 1 inch to 1 1/2 inches deep. Normally I would just stick my fingure in the dirt and guess but this year I wanted to be better and really know why things were growing and not growing so I made two tools, one to space and make the proper depth holes and the other to help clean the holes incase they collapse before I get the seed in it.
Having a few woodworking tools helped but a couple of hand tools will work to make these.
The one that looks like a handleless rack is made of 3/4 inch oak board with 1/2 inch oak dowels, pointed and cut to length and the dribbler, (I think that is what it is called) is made from a dead elm tree branch that I just pruned. I put two coats of floor wax on each tool so to help stop the dirt from sticking.
To use, I push the rake looking thing into the soil and give it a couple of wiggles and pull it out. As in the picture there are nearly perfectly spaced and perfectly deep holes that are ready to drop the beans into.
-- I plant trees not to admire but for those that come after me... Zone 11
8 comments so far
Kindlingmaker
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38 posts in 1647 days
hardiness zone 11
posted 63 days ago
Oh, The blue tape on the dribbler is set at the planting depth. Since making this tool I have used it for several other planting depths by changing the position of the tape. the next one I make will have depth rings cut into it.
-- I plant trees not to admire but for those that come after me... Zone 11
MsDebbieP
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13915 posts in 2141 days
hardiness zone 5b
posted 63 days ago
I like your handy bean planting tool.
I do the old “dig a trench, drop some seeds, cover the trench” method but this is much more accurate!
-- - Debbie, SW Ontario Canada (USDA Hardiness Zone: 5a)
Radicalfarmergal
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3982 posts in 1404 days
hardiness zone 5b
posted 63 days ago
That looks like a very handy tool, Kindlingmaker. Let us know if you find that the tool improves your harvest over hand planting. I was visiting the Antelope Valley last week and the weather was glorious. I weeded my mom’s rose garden in bare feet, a t-shirt and shorts, only to come back to a winter storm that dropped sixteen inches of snow on us. sigh I am glad you are able to get out and start planting.
-- "To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves." M. Gandhi
Kindlingmaker
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38 posts in 1647 days
hardiness zone 11
posted 62 days ago
MsDebbie – As you know one of my other passions is woodworking. There seems to be more chores than time to play in the woodshop so making the tools served both.
Radicalfarmergal – I didn’t think anyone knew where the Antelope Valley was except aerospace people.
-- I plant trees not to admire but for those that come after me... Zone 11
Radicalfarmergal
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3982 posts in 1404 days
hardiness zone 5b
posted 62 days ago
My dad worked as a physicist for NASA at the Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, so I grew up in the Antelope Valley. I guess that makes me a sort-of aerospace person. : )
-- "To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves." M. Gandhi
justjoel
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897 posts in 1522 days
hardiness zone 7a
posted 62 days ago
Excellent dibber tools!
-- There's a box?
Iris43
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3685 posts in 1771 days
hardiness zone 5a
posted 62 days ago
Oh! That is a nifty tool! :D
-- 'To plant a Garden is to believe in Tomorrow'
OttoH
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134 posts in 1180 days
hardiness zone 9
posted 59 days ago
Mighty Cool Tool, anyone that doesn’t like it would be a Fool. Great designs, especially the bean planter, better watch out the next thing you know it will be offered at the high end gardening stores!
-- My green thumb came only as a result of the mistakes I made while learning to see things from the plant's point of view. ~H. Fred Ale