I bet you strip a drive line or you get hung up and OFF YOU GO!!!!!
:shock: :shock: :shock: Worth |
You get that thing caught in a root or around a rock and it will spin you like a merry go round. :D
I'll give a different answer to most of what is above. Deep holes are very beneficial if you live in a dry area and if you don't irrigate. There is a farmer in Israel planting fruit trees in a very arid climate. He digs holes 25 feet deep and fills them with manure, then plants a tree in the top of the hole. The tree sends roots straight down following the nutrients and winds up in the water table which allows it to grow and thrive in spite of the near desert condition at the surface. I have dug holes 3 feet deep and filled them with amended topsoil with lots of compost and other nutrients. Plants grow with unbelievable vigor and stay lush and productive even in August which is usually our driest month. This is because they followed the nutrients down to the clay layer which is alway moist. Fusion |
Wow! What a manly tool!!
I wanna borrow it, if it doesn't kill you............! :shock: |
Be careful with that thing. You want to taste some tomatoes this year , right?
|
Given it's head, a robust tomato plant
will root 3-4' deep. The questions are does it need to find N-P-K etc throughout that volume to provide peak production and does ease of rooting also correlate to production? If you provide plenty of organic matter and a sufficiency of a tomato plant's most pressing nutritional needs in the top 12" of soil, it may only need the rest of the depth of roots for a consistent water supply and perhaps to find silicon and other minerals (that may be found even in what would normally be considered nutritionally poor sandy or heavy clay soil). With a thick mulch, worms and other native soil organisms will do a lot for you. I've seen ease of rooting correlate to speed of growth in a lot of different kinds of plants, but you don't necessarily have to till to create conditions that promote easy root penetration: [url]http://www.cedarmeadowfarm.com/PublishedArticles/NewsArticles/News10.html[/url] (The image of nightcrawlers dragging soon-to-be earthworm castings down into their burrows is not soon forgotten.) Not to belittle the Earl Hole method of tomato bed preparation, of course. Whatever works for you.... And not everyone has soil that is amenable to a mulch-instead-of-till method. Good opportunity for an experiment: cover crop, weed-eater, mulch instead of till a section of bed, till-and-posthole another section that gets comparable sunlight, top dress anything that you till in to the "till" section on top of the "no-till" section (preferably in fall, so that worms and other soil organisms have time to bring it down to the root zone before you plant next spring), and grow 4 or more plants of the same cultivar in each section. If the no-till approach works for you, you could publish: "How To Turn A Craftsman Tiller Into A Stump Grinder." |
I am trying to dig deep because:
1. Although some say it will not have much benefit for the work involved, but I haven’t heard that it will do much harm. 2. I haven’t heard too many people have tried it. 3. Mostly because I plant tomatoes very very tight, 18” apart due to the lack of space. 4. I know I do not have good soil below 18”. Regarding this crazy digger which I made: 1. I don’t have room to store another machine which I use infrequently. 2. I don’t want to spend $400 to $500 for a digger. 3. It’s throttle speed driven, so I can control the speed of the auger from 0 to full speed. 4. It’s clutch/gear driven so there is no chain to be broken. 5. You may notice that the auger bit is actually an ice fishing auger, which cuts less aggressively down. 6. I looked at commercial one-man operated gas auger designs; the mechanical leverage is about 30”. In my contraption, it’s about 50” so I will have a lot less twist/torque to deal with.. In any case, if it doesn’t work, I will be happy to lend it to you guys in one of your Choptag/Tomatopalooza events to make spaghetti sauce. dcarch :wink: |
Re: Dig this. Dig I must.
[quote=dcarch]I converted my rototiller to an earth digger to help me dig deep. [/quote]
Geek. 1. I'm jealous you're able to till to a depth of *18* inches. That must be a helluva tiller ... wait, the one you converted to an auger doesn't look like the monster tiller I'm imagining. Either you have >= two tillers, or ... you can get 18" down with the hand tiller?? 2. Yeah yeah, if you till, the earthworms are crushed, the mycorrhizae get angry, and the soil crosses its arms and gives you the silent treatment. You know what? It all comes back! Fast! I will never argue till vs no-till. I have both tilled and non-tilled gardens, and you know what? Both host great vegetables. Both methods work! 3. Catching fish, and burying them at the bottom of a hole. Hmmph. I'm glad I'm at the top of the food chain, that's for sure. J |
PS: What do you think about replacing
the other set of blades with some kind of flywheel (part of an old weight-lifting set, maybe) that weighs the same as the posthole-digging extension? That should improve fuel efficiency and stability. (I am also remembering hand-drills that I ruined putting side pressure on a bit to make a hole bigger or oblong, or trying to use one with a rotary rasp. Your tiller clearly has fairly hefty bearings at the cutting end, but they were perhaps not designed for this amount of force exerted in one direction perpendicular to the drive shaft. OTOH, parts are probably available if any bearings wear out unexpectedly.) You could test drive it drilling a hole beside a tree with an old tire strapped to it. If it gets away from you, the tree will limit the travel, and the tire may save the tiller. Edit: The hand-drills did not stop working completely, the mistreatment simply introduced a wobble into the bearings, and they never drilled a hole the same size as the installed bit afterwards. |
This is what I have.
They are fast and I need the exercise. You wanna race? :) [url]http://www.ridgid.com/Tools/Post-Hole-Digger---Fiberglass-Handles[/url] Worth |
[quote=Worth1]This is what I have.
They are fast and I need the exercise. You wanna race? :) [url]http://www.ridgid.com/Tools/Post-Hole-Digger---Fiberglass-Handles[/url] Worth[/quote] [img]http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i240/dcarch/Gusher2.jpg[/img] dcarch :arrow: :lol: |
Not to rain on your parade, but will the engine run correctly in that position? Just a thought. :-)
|
Just Curious. How do you stop the top part (motor, etc.) from spinning?
[quote=dcarch] Regarding this crazy digger which I made: 1. I don’t have room to store another machine which I use infrequently. 2. I don’t want to spend $400 to $500 for a digger. [/quote] Second question, isn't there a local rental place that might rent safer equiptment that will accomplish the same task? |
[quote=tomakers]Not to rain on your parade, but will the engine run correctly in that position? Just a thought. :-)[/quote]
Very good question. Not all small engines can operate when they are not in the proper position. This particular engine will operate if I fill the tank full. Angelique, If you are talking about the tines, they all will be removed so there will be no danger. I didn't get a chance to remove them for the pictures. I intend to use it a couple of times a week for the whole year, so it will be very expensive to rent one. The thing looks dangerous, I believe it is very safe. I am very careful with this knid of things. dcarch |
Just be safe. Take it from me, in November I had an accident with an immersion blender. Needless, to say, 5 stitches and a few months later, I have no feeling in the top portion of my right middle finger.
Angelique P.S. DH is still finding spots of blood on the kitchen, living room, dining room and entrance walls and ceiling. |
Thanks.
A friend get his fingers crushed by the car door. He lost feeling in his fingers after he recovered from the stitches. He finally went to a finger specialist. He now has most of the feelings back after a second surgery. dcarch |
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 11:27 PM. |
★ Tomatoville® is a registered trademark of Commerce Holdings, LLC ★ All Content ©2022 Commerce Holdings, LLC ★