Planting stick

I made some planting sticks that i use for gardening, saves on the sore back.
Made from 1" tubing, with a taper cut point on the bottom and a 2" rubber funnel on the top.
Lenth is chest high to the planter. Made some for the grandkids too various lenths to suit there needs.
 Handy as a walking-planting stick for planting when on walk about.
 Anyone else use this method for planting?

In my restoration work we use metal planting sticks for our live stakes and sometimes bareroots if we are doing a lot all at once. I may use one in the future at my place but I have not so far.

Daron Williams wrote:In my restoration work we use metal planting sticks for our live stakes and sometimes bareroots if we are doing a lot all at once. I may use one in the future at my place but I have not so far.

i have used that type as well for planting trees. THey work good for healing in seedlings. The one i made is hollow so i can drop seeds down thru the tube after i make a hole with the pointed end. Will try to figure out how to post a picture of it.

I use planting sticks. A piece of PVC or steel pipe, cut off at an angle on the bottom. No funnel on top. I use them to plant seeds, onions, potatoes, transplants, etc...I have a few different sizes to fit the project.  I love them, because they allow me to plant without bending over.  I make the length of them about elbow high.

Thanks for posting your video joseph, looks handy, i could use one that size. Will have to make one.

I couldn't play the video, so please forgive me if the answer to this question is in the video!

How do you keep the tube from clogging up with soil?  

I love this idea, as my back and body have a hard time with the rigors of planting.  But in my clay soil I think I'd be spending all my time cleaning out the tube...  I think I must be missing something.

Maureen Atsali wrote:How do you keep the tube from clogging up with soil?  

The angle-cut on the bottom keeps the tube from clogging up with soil.  The long end of the tube faces forward. I stick it into the ground, give it a little kick forward to open up a hole, then drop in the seed or the plants. I also have sticky clay soil, and in very wet soil, I have clogged the tube. It sucks to plant 100 foot row, and have all the seeds in the tube when I'm done!!! But it's mostly carefree. I just have to pay attention in super-muddy ground.  

In rocks or hard ground, I use steel tubing, and a pair of stiff work-books, then I can use my foot as a fulrum to lever the tube into the soil.

I like it!  Now to see if I can get the hardware to sell me just a short length of steel pipe... And if I can find someone with a hack saw to put the angle on.  (I don't think PVC would hold up here.)

I make my planting sticks using aluminium tubing,  and use mulch so the soil is easy to plant in. Just use the stick to slide the mulch aside, give the stick a twist and drop the seeds into the hole created, and use the stick to cover the seed as needed. Slide the mulch back after plant sprouts. Takes longer to explain than do. Works good for planting acorns and hazzle nuts.

mark carter wrote:Takes longer to explain than do.

Yup. Takes about 4 seconds each to plant tomatoes. So a flat of 72 can be planted in less than 5 minutes. Takes longer than that to water them after planting.

I am on a forced rest this week for health reasons, but of course I lay around with a pen and paper and think about the garden and how to improve it.  And hopefully how to make it more efficient and easier on my body.  I have had really good success making something like long lines of mini swales and berms across the whole garden.  I plant in the trenches when its dry, and on the berms during the rains.  The difficulty I was facing is that in the process of digging holes for planting on the upper part, I was flattening it.  I do believe this could be the solution - planting with minimal soil disturbance.

I am also thinking this will be super sweet for planting maize.  We usually dig a hole for every single seed... And plant about a half acre every season.  My in-laws plant about 5 acres that way.  I think it will save a lot of time and labor.  (For us, but not my in-laws, as they use chemical fertilizers.)

The reason i started using planting sticks was that my rototiller quit working and i couldn't afford to repair it, still needed to feed my family, so i thought what would happen if fuel was to expensive or not available.
Thats when i started planting fruit and nut trees, berrys and crops that don't require tilling. Plant thru mulch and grow mulch.
 There have ben times when i was not physically able to plant but my kids used planting sticks and made  quick work of it, at harvest time i had plenty of help, some freinds picked on shares and we had enough left over to donate two truck loads to our local food pantry.
 

Maureen Atsali wrote:I like it!  Now to see if I can get the hardware to sell me just a short length of steel pipe... And if I can find someone with a hack saw to put the angle on.  (I don't think PVC would hold up here.)

Do you have any bamboo where you are?  I wonder if that might work.

Steven Kovacs wrote:

Maureen Atsali wrote:I like it!  Now to see if I can get the hardware to sell me just a short length of steel pipe... And if I can find someone with a hack saw to put the angle on.  (I don't think PVC would hold up here.)

Do you have any bamboo where you are?  I wonder if that might work.

don't have bamboo thats usable in michigan, i used a bandsaw to cut the angle on my planting sticks.
 Pvc tubing is fairly tough, and you can always hose clamp a piece of metal to the end of it.
 Aluminum tubing was available from the scrap yard for $1.50 lb so they cost 2-3 dollars to make. The funnel end i bought at msu salvage for .50 cent each. There 2" wide at the top and fit the tubing at the small end. There used on garden hoses so you can disconnect the hose under pressure and not spray yourself. The funnel on the end makes it easy to put the seed in the end of the tube. Good luck

I made one!  Went to town today.  The hardware wouldn't sell round pipe at any less than a 10 ft section, and it was expensive.  So I went around to the scrap dealers.  I still couldn't find round tube, but I did find a square pipe.  I paid about 2 dollars for the pipe, plus fifty cents for the boy to cut the angle for me.  I toyed around with it in the field already, and I can see its going to take some practice to make it work smoothly.  And I will have to wear shoes, me thinks.  I was all fumble fingers, and I did manage to clog the pipe about every 5th hole.  I think it will work, I just have to get a working rhythm... And figure out the right way to insert the pipe without picking up a plug of soil.

Maureen Atsali wrote:I made one!  Went to town today.  The hardware wouldn't sell round pipe at any less than a 10 ft section, and it was expensive.  So I went around to the scrap dealers.  I still couldn't find round tube, but I did find a square pipe.  I paid about 2 dollars for the pipe, plus fifty cents for the boy to cut the angle for me.  I toyed around with it in the field already, and I can see its going to take some practice to make it work smoothly.  And I will have to wear shoes, me thinks.  I was all fumble fingers, and I did manage to clog the pipe about every 5th hole.  I think it will work, I just have to get a working rhythm... And figure out the right way to insert the pipe without picking up a plug of soil.

Great!

If possible, it might be valuable to try a round pipe as well to see which works better.  My suspicion is that a round cross section will work better both in terms of penetrating the ground cleanly (the point on an angled tube is sharper than the point on an angled square) and avoiding clogging (square corners seem more likely to collect mud on the inside).  Kicking the pipe forward might work better with a round pipe as well for the same reason that boats don't have flat prows.

You might be right about the square shape being a problem. I could have the angle recut so that the corner is facing forward instead of a flat edge.  I can't afford 10 ft of new pipe from the hardware right now, so I will have to see if I can make this one work for the time being.

Maureen Atsali wrote:You might be right about the square shape being a problem. I could have the angle recut so that the corner is facing forward instead of a flat edge.  I can't afford 10 ft of new pipe from the hardware right now, so I will have to see if I can make this one work for the time being.

Recutting the angle would help with the point penetrating the ground, but then a corner would be facing your kicking foot too, which could be painful.  Try kicking the pipe on the corner a few times before you bother getting it recut.

figured how to post pictures, the planting sticks are cut so they are chest high to the user, the reason I like them that long is that it lets me plant thru a fence or cage without having to open the cage.

Bumping this up because I need to make some sort of planting tube/stick so I can put acorns and chestnuts and things down in my bit of burned out forest.

Will update as we start to experiment...

For planting into non-tilled soil, it really helps if the tube is steel. It also helps to wear heavy boots.

Last year I tried to design similar thing with a caulk gun. The idea is to suspend seeds in a muddy slurry in the tube and inject one dose at a time in to the soil. The tip needs to be quite long so I can do it standing up. I had problems finding the suitable parts and kind of dropped the project.

I've been experimenting with PVC and steel tubes for this purpose but the end keeps stuffing with soil and then the seeds don't go into the hole. The first time I only realized after there were a couple of dozen seeds down there and I had to assume nothing got planted. It seems like in Joseph's description, kicking the tube forward should take care of that but it isn't for me. I wonder if I'm jamming it too deep or something. (Certainly much deeper than the diagonal cut.)

For me, the diagonal cut provided the best anti-clog strategy. I garden in heavy clay, so couldn't jab the pipe past the diagonal cut even if I tried. Kicking the tube forward allows me to increase the depth without clogging.