Garden fence build

[drumminj]

Welp, spent today trying to finish out digging the post holes. Sadly, it seems that the rocks on my property live about 2 1/2 feet down in the clay soil and I'm digging 3 foot holes. So lots of time spent digging out rocks with a pry bar. I'm going to be so ripped after this

Still 7 holes to go (out of 25) and the PHD doesn't seem to want to actually dig anymore -- it gets through the topsoil but then stops digging deeper. Anyone run into this? We ran and got replacement cutting edges (I had tried sharpening them with a file which didn't seem to do the job)...my run and get a replacement auger tip as well as it sounds like maybe that's what's supposed to "bite" and pull the auger deeper?

One thing remains true in the universe -- projects always take longer and cost more than expected!

 

[ning]

Mine just sits and spins half the year in most of my soils - just polishes the clay unless it's reasonably moist. Too moist and yes it digs but it makes a big mess.

If you've got the polished clay situation, dig by hand a 6" hole, fill with water, let it soak in, refill, soak, then drill.

 

[pmsmechanic]

I thought about setting the posts just in gravel, but with our clay soil I figured that would result in a hole filled with water around the post, being very slow to drain.

Instead decided to set in concrete to help anchor and fill most of the hole with clay soil to avoid a bunch of water getting in and sitting in the hole, around the post.

Am I thinking about it wrong?

Well I might also be thinking about it wrong but with concrete water gets in between the concrete and the post and can never drain away. Also when you replace the post you have the concrete to deal with. With crushed rock you pull the post , clean out the rock and set a new post in the same hole with the same crushed rock.

I've also noticed that posts mostly seem to rot at the first 6" or so into the ground. At least with crushed rock the water can drain away. even if it takes a while.

What I like the most about crushed rock is the ease of setting a post and the self tightening aspect. It's amassing how as you wiggle the post it tightens up to the ground. Like you'd better make sure the post is exactly where you want it because it's not moving after you pour the rock around it.

 

[EddieWalker]

I've had similar issues with drilling holes. I can get so far, and that's it. What I've found works for me in my area is adding water and not trying to drill the holes again during the week. I have two six gallon water jugs. I'll fill the hole with water until it overflows. Wait two days and do it again. Then wait two days and do it again. When Saturday comes around, they almost always drill easy after that.

I've also found that drilling holes in the Spring is the easiest. Winter and Spring rains make the ground it's softest for the year. This time of the year, it's the worse.

As a Handyman/Contractor/Remodeler, I've replaced quite a few fence posts for clients. In my experience, the very worse thing you can do is pack dirt around a post. I've never seen rocks used, but from what I understand, it's also a bad idea. The very best method that I've found is filling the hole with concrete and building up a crown to shed water.

Microbes in the dirt eat the wood. Doesn't matter if it's a tree branch laying on the ground, or a treated post in the ground. The treatment slows them down, but it's not absolute. Anywhere water accumulates, the microbes flourish. Keep the dirt and water away from the post, and it remains forever.

Posts set in dirt will have a low area all the way around the base of the post. I'm guessing gravel is the same. That sitting water is where all the rot happens on a wood post. Not pouring enough concrete in the hole will cause rot too. The most important thing is building up the concrete so it's higher then the surrounding ground, and water sheds away from it.

To me, gravel just allows more water to get around the post, and water will bring dirt into the hole with it when it's raining. If I was trying to make the post rot faster, I think gravel would be the way to do it.

Wood posts set in dirt come out as easy as T-Posts. I pull them at idle. I can only pull a wood post set in concrete with my backhoe, and it's straining at high RPM's to get it out.

 

[jyoutz]

Assuming that this is to keep deer out, my only advice is to consider a much lesser fence around a much larger area of the property. $2500 gets a lot of fencing materials, with 5' of 2x4 horse fence on the bottom, a couple strands of barbed or barbless wire on top you can keep deer out and much farther away from the garden and without the garden being right on the other side of the fence from them they're even less likely to try the fence. Then you can have more future flexibility in your more intensely planted space.

I like the looks of what you've got in mind but my experience is that at some point you may want more garden space, and then you're doing that again or just pushing the deer farther out once and for all.

In our gardens I occasionally throw some 4' wire (usually 2x4) around a couple beds here or there because the chickens decided to get into them, but our gardens are otherwise just open to the surrounding yard. It's a nice feeling not being enclosed IMO though our neighbors aren't particularly close so we're not looking for a feeling of privacy.

In order to keep deer out of my garden and orchard, I had to construct an 8’ fence. Two rolls of 4’ field fence stacked. I have a 5’ field fence around the land perimeter and they jump that easily.

 

[2manyrocks]

This is not a good time of year to dig post holes in Middle Tennessee because the soil is dry this time of year despite the recent rain. I was under a time deadline to dig post holes a couple of years ago and had to dig in similar conditions. The auger didn't want to bite and dig. Lot of work with a rock bar.... lot of broken shear bolts.

 

[drumminj]

This is not a good time of year to dig post holes in Middle Tennessee because the soil is dry this time of year despite the recent rain. I was under a time deadline to dig post holes a couple of years ago and had to dig in similar conditions. The auger didn't want to bite and dig. Lot of work with a rock bar.... lot of broken shear bolts.

I've found the soil to be moist enough -- once out of the hole you can see it dry out in the sun. And the first ~10 holes went fine....I think it's an issue of the cutting edges getting dull, and big rocks getting in the way.

I was able to finish digging the holes today (3 days work in total) with a lot of time spent with the rock bar. Ended up using a pallet fork on the tractor to loosen a 12" x 8" x 15" limestone rock. Others I did my best to break them up with brute force. My hands are raw, but the holes are dug, damnit.

Oh, and I sheared the bolts that hold the auger to the gearbox...turns out my neighbor had a grade 5 bolt in for the shear bolt rather than grade 2. My bad for not checking....glad those bolts sheared rather than damaging the tractor.

Going forward, 2' down is my limit unless I'm digging with a mini-ex

 

[ning]

It doesn't take a lot to stop a 3ph auger - they can just spin sitting on a rock or root that's angled just right that the teeth or edge don't grab it.

I almost regret buying a 3ph auger. I've used it quite a bit, and overall it definitely saved effort vs doing it all by hand, but in retrospect I suspect that even on a tractor with ~9gpm hydraulic flow, a hydraulic QA auger would be vastly superior due to downpressure, and the prices don't seem very different - but at the time I didn't realize that they were actually an alternative.

It's not like using an auger requires a lot of speed after all; I've been known to turn up the revs with using mine just because every rev of the auger apparently was getting like 0.1mm so let's get more revs and eventually we'll get somewhere... but with downforce even one tenth the revs would've been so much more effective.

I rented a skid with an auger when I put in my solar array's ground mount, as I needed twelve 12" holes (I have 6 & 9" auger bits) five feet deep - and my 3ph auger struggles to get 3' down... besides there was no way I was going to do with with my 3ph having the prior experience of using that. As it was, the skid's downpressure definitely was an improvement but I encountered a rock layer in a few of the holes that I spent a couple hours (in each hole) chipping away, three feet down; chip chip chip, auger a bit more. It was "funny" but the rental guy was like "oh yeah you're going to spend more time picking it up and returning it than drilling the holes"; he would've been right if not for that rock layer - as it was my wife and I put in a fourteen hour day so we could return the skid first thing the next morning. (this is to say - QA hydraulic auger isn't a guarantee, but it's definitely better than 3ph!)

 

[drumminj]

Yeah, I think downforce would be helpful. A skidsteer with hydraulic auger would have been a smart way to go in retrospect. Though, whenever the PTO auger wouldn't bite, it seems that larger rocks were the issue, or were about to be an issue.

Perhaps the auger and cutting teeth are heavier duty on the skid steer auger and would be able to chip up the limestone. But if not, I'd end up in the same place as you describe -- chipping away at or trying to dig around larger rocks.

In our soil I think it would have been smooth sailing going only 2' down. But trying to get 3'+ down is where the soil and rocks get difficult. I think our fence will end up about 8' above ground, and I want to get the posts as deep as I can/as close as 1/3 under ground.

 

[ning]

Yeah, I think downforce would be helpful. A skidsteer with hydraulic auger would have been a smart way to go in retrospect. Though, whenever the PTO auger wouldn't bite, it seems that larger rocks were the issue, or were about to be an issue.

Perhaps the auger and cutting teeth are heavier duty on the skid steer auger and would be able to chip up the limestone. But if not, I'd end up in the same place as you describe -- chipping away at or trying to dig around larger rocks.

In our soil I think it would have been smooth sailing going only 2' down. But trying to get 3'+ down is where the soil and rocks get difficult. I think our fence will end up about 8' above ground, and I want to get the posts as deep as I can/as close as 1/3 under ground.

I've found plenty of rocks that I suspect due to low downforce the teeth would just graze over despite there being dirt next to them. Hard dirt. With heavier downforce - and a slower speed - the teeth in some cases may be able to bite down into the dirt next to these rocks and pull them out.
Not in all cases certainly, but I have no doubt that it would help, particularly since I'm sometimes able to get the auger to pull rocks, if I can loosen enough of the dirt around them.