not a bad dibble

[djdicetn]

Dibber - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I see the problem, perhaps you've heard of a dibber?
from ancient Rome no less...

Ohhhhhhh, a dibber!!!! Actually, never heard of either:0)
Be it a dibble/dibber, peg, plantin' stick or whatever I still think that if the soil is too hard to use the index finger, nuthin's gonna grow anyway:0) And, in the case of bulbs, tobacco plants, etc. that need a hole bigger/deeper than the finger....I agree, that's what I thought the end of the hoe handle was for. BTW, what would we do without Wickipedia???? We would be plumb stupid without the ability to Google anything:0)
P.S.
Check out my pictures below.....this is a city boy's concept of "farming":0)

 

[Furu]

Obviously not for high acreage farming...

In forestry planting a dibble is used for planting plug seedlings and 3000 trees a day is pretty high acreage in many folks opinion.
Speedy Dibble

 

[daugen]

In forestry planting a dibble is used for planting plug seedlings and 3000 trees a day is pretty high acreage in many folks opinion.
Speedy Dibble

Furu,good reference, thanks. I grew up on a farm named Rockwood, and we had plenty of both.
My father loved to order trees from the back of the Rodale catalog, some place in Maine or Vermont, hundreds of pine seedlings showing up at our door. Now in the fifties my tools were a pickax, steel bar and a rounded shovel. All of which were backbreaking to use in our rocky soil.
I would have begged for one of these if I had known they existed:
JIM-GEM® KBC Bar

I grew up with seventy acres of our own mixed hardwoods forest surrounding our farm. We had trees out the ears, but none seemed to wanted to grow out by the road. Miserable rocky clay soil. The farmers broke so many plows and discs in it that they finally went to a spring mounted plow and that was great fun to watch. Which reinforces the challenges of digging nice little holes in the ground with a trowel or spade when you had about a 98% chance of stopping dead in the first inch against an immovable object. Of course, this is why my local area has many stone quarries, there is sure plenty of granite here. We even found an old hand quarry back in the woods, with little bits of chiseled castoffs piled in mounds. We always wondered who quarried there, but since our home went back to 1720, we had no idea who had been there before.
All I knew is that I never wanted to live in an old house again, nothing worked, and my father was challenged by an adjustable wrench.

So what happened, the glaciers went through here and this is the glacial moraine? I can drive thirty miles away over to NJ and as my friend there says, "you can't buy a rock". Very sandy. His parents ran a blueberry farm there years ago. So he loves to pack away a few rocks in his truck when he visits, rocks are royalty near Ft. Dix. Too bad I can't levitate a whole bunch of them over there.

 

[Jackspaw]

All my seeds get planted at either(a thumbnail) (a knuckle) or a(knuckle and a half) or (drop&step).

 

[k0ua]

We always used a "dibble" especially to plant tomato seedlings. It was a piece of steel bar 1 1/4 inch wide, and maybe 14 inches long with the last 5 or 6 inches bent over to 90 degrees to form the handle. and the other end pointed to penetrate the ground. Dibble the hole, water the hole and set the plant, and mound it up a bit with your hand. A lot of seeds got put in with a walking stand up planter. You wear a nail apron with the seeds in it, throw seed in hoppper and squeeze handle while movable end is jambed in soil, The seed falls down and out moveable end. Step on the area with foot. No bending just walk and plant.. you can really plant a lot of seeds in a hurry.

James K0UA

 

[Depmandog]

Dang, what's all this dorky drivel about dabbling with a dibble? I deduce you dribble the dainty seeds into the dibble depression?

Sure glad I don't stutter

 

[grnspot110]

I use a hmde. planting stick about 3' long w/"T" handle, a 3/4" plastic pipe glued to the side & off-set funnel. Poke the hole in the ground, drop the seeds in the funnel. The, when done planting the bed ( I only use rows for peas that use a trellis), I lightly tamp the bed with a rake. ~~ grnspot

 

[daugen]

grnspot,
great idea!
and your dalmation sure wants to help.

 

[grnspot110]

Finally found the pictures of my "planting stick", I knew I had them, just couldn't find them!

 

[Depmandog]

Finally found the pictures of my "planting stick", I knew I had them, just couldn't find them!

That funnel of yours looks like those hospital pee bottles. You sure you don't "water" your seeds in as you plant

Haha - nice looking job. Good thinking!