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  • From: Errol Castens <castens AT nepower.coop>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Market-farming] digging lots of holes
  • Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 15:40:14 -0400 (EDT)

Richard wrote:
In a few weeks I will be planting about 300 Christmas trees. For the past 7 years, I have been using a planting bar, essentially a wedge on a stick, which is the common way to do this chore. But every year my arms and shoulders are ruined for about a week after, and this year I am going into the season with a damaged shoulder, and am hoping to avoid using the planting bar. I have thought of a gas-powered post-hole digger, but have never used one. For those of you with experience using them, how practical this would be to use to dig 300 holes 10-12 inches deep in sandy loam? Is it likely to be as onerous in its own way as using the planting bar? Anybody have any other ideas for tools to do this?

Errol replies:
Having used a one-man auger before, I went to rent a tractor-mounted auger when I was about to plant 100+ blueberry plants, but the rental place in my town did not have a tractor-mounted one available. Instead, they rented me a skid steer (Bobcat-type) machine with an auger on the front. It did a great job, was easy to line up and didn't require twisting around to get a rear view all the time.

One MAJOR caution, though: If you're not already comfortably adept with such a machine, think twice unless you're on pretty flat ground. The skid steer felt a little unstable on my hilly land, and when I was on my next-to-last row I backed just a bit too close to a gully and rolled the machine. Neither it nor I was hurt, but all kinds of bad things might have happened. And it cost me another $150 for the tow truck that the rental place suggested to upright the skidsteer. If anybody ever complains about the price of my blueberries when they start producing, I may just smack him! :)




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