I went up to see a friend on his allotment this morning to help a bit with
things that need to be done like have a chat over a cup of tea and all
that.

Because its a nice day, but cold, there were lots of like minded gardeners
there, and as it is Tuesday it's meeting day and the gates are open.
In comes a salesman trying to sell things like a cherrywood dibber which is
graduated in inches and cm for £15, a fork thingy to take up perennial
weeds made of stainless steel £10, some plastic coated wire £7.50 to use as
one would use string to tie in say a tomato. And more and more.

Would you pay for a dibber when you can use your old wooden spade or fork
shaft? or some magic tool that can do to weeds something we can't by
digging? or some wire, coated with plastic we can't do without and use good
old fashioned string?

To be fair to the guy, he had some fine petrol/deisel rotovators and
mulchers. BUT you could buy any at less than half price online.

What tips have you for 'making do' with tools?
Baz

On Tue, 01 Mar 2011 12:21:15 GMT, Baz wrote:
[...]

What tips have you for 'making do' with tools?

I wouldn't be without my faithful stainless steel table fork for
general poking-about duties. Chinagraph pencil for writing on labels
made from strips of yogurt pot: weather- and fade-proof. Once upon a
time, when I thought you had to be fussy, I had a few odd plastic
things like aerosol caps marked with the weight of growmore, bonemeal,
etc they would hold: now I just guess, which is the ultimate
making-do.

--
Mike.

On 01/03/2011 13:21, Baz wrote:


What tips have you for 'making do' with tools?
Baz



My most useful homemade tool is my finger dibber. I've never ever seen
one in the garden centres but now I mention it here it will probably
only be a matter of time!

I use it to plant onion sets and set out other seedlings. It is approx
one and half inches long and made from a piece of metal tube that is
slightly larger in diameter than my index finger. I've flattened one end
and bent the sides over into a flat spear shaped point. To make it
comfortable to wear I cut off the index finger off an old pair of gloves
and fixed it inside with some exoxy-resin glue.

The finger-dibber is perfect for use in soft ground. The advantage of
this over a conventional dibber is that when planting lots of seedlings
or onion sets that I don't need to keep putting it down and picking it
up again between setting each plant.

The advantage of using the finger-dibber over no dibber at all i.e. just
poking a hole with your finger is that you don't force soil up under
your finger nail which sometimes goes just that bit too far up and can
cause infection.

The other homemade tool I use a lot is simply a small garden hoe to
which I've attached a long brush stave handle. It is great for getting
into tight spots to do weeding without bending my back and for weeding
between onions and other plants that are too close together for a
conventional full size hoe.


--
David in Normandy.
To e-mail you must include the password FROG on the
subject line, or it will be automatically deleted
by a filter and not reach my inbox.

On Tue, 01 Mar 2011 12:21:15 GMT, Baz wrote:

I went up to see a friend on his allotment this morning to help a bit with
things that need to be done like have a chat over a cup of tea and all
that.

Because its a nice day, but cold, there were lots of like minded gardeners
there, and as it is Tuesday it's meeting day and the gates are open.
In comes a salesman trying to sell things like a cherrywood dibber which is
graduated in inches and cm for £15, a fork thingy to take up perennial
weeds made of stainless steel £10, some plastic coated wire £7.50 to use as
one would use string to tie in say a tomato. And more and more.

Would you pay for a dibber when you can use your old wooden spade or fork
shaft? or some magic tool that can do to weeds something we can't by
digging? or some wire, coated with plastic we can't do without and use good
old fashioned string?

To be fair to the guy, he had some fine petrol/deisel rotovators and
mulchers. BUT you could buy any at less than half price online.

What tips have you for 'making do' with tools?
Baz


Going back many years, one of my best digging tools was a sock!

Not any old sock, mind you, it had to be a sock that I had worn. My
partner in crime was a dog who, if he got his jaws on one of my socks,
would bury it in the garden.

If I wanted to plant a shrub, all I had to do was lay a smelly sock on
the ground where I wanted the hole dug. Dog would then oblige, digging
merrily just in front of the sock. I simply removed the sock and gave
him a "Bonio" once the hole was deep enough. He never threw the earth
too far - it usually collected in a reasonable pile nearby.

The only downside was unwanted diggings if he got his snout into the
laundry basket and tipped it over. In those days I had a lot of odd
socks!

Jake

On 01/03/2011 16:10, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Tue, 01 Mar 2011 16:08:19 +0100, David in Normandy
wrote:



The other homemade tool I use a lot is simply a small garden hoe to
which I've attached a long brush stave handle. It is great for getting
into tight spots to do weeding without bending my back and for weeding
between onions and other plants that are too close together for a
conventional full size hoe.

chuckle
I've done exactly the opposite. I had a small-bladed hoe, say 4" wide,
with a long handle that I seldom used. I cut its handle down to about
12" and it now makes an excellent hand-hoe, along with a hand-fork and
trowel, and is brilliant for weeding on hands and knees.


I've done that, too! :~) and made a dibber out of an old fork handle.

--
Spider
from high ground in SE London
gardening on clay

"Baz" wrote in message
...

Would you pay for a dibber when you can use your old wooden spade or fork
shaft? or some magic tool that can do to weeds something we can't by
digging? or some wire, coated with plastic we can't do without and use
good
old fashioned string?

What tips have you for 'making do' with tools?
Baz

I did a bit of wood turning as a hobby and have "turned " many a dibber and
sold them to raise funds for Cancer Research UK.

Any scrap of wood, e.g. old broom handle will provide enough material for
quite a few.

Bill