1) Stay off your land until it is reasonably friable. Don't
auger it, don't spade it, don't drive your horse across it -- on heavy
clay, the compaction damage you can do takes a long time to reverse.
2) You can utilize a circular digger, tho -- a 9 or 10 inch auger
to make the initial hole, followed by a gorilla-powered spade. Your
auger will make Ed's clay pot, but your gorilla can destroy that by creating
a 12-14 inch hole.
3) Even on good friable soil, using an auger very often results
in a hole 16-18-24 inches deep. So much fun seeing that dirt spilling
out. That too-deep hole, though, will present a delayed settling
problem. You carefully set your tree with the union 4 inches above
soil level -- and then the soil level falls by 5 inches, and you're in
the scion-rooting business. Fine if you want a big standard tree!!
//Jim
www.cumminsnursery.com
Ed & Pat Fackler wrote:
Del----------My only comment re: below is that digging holes in clay soils with any
type of circular digger will almost guarantee a clay pot, even if soils are
only slightly wet.
If you are insistent on digging with such a device, I'd use a fork to
deglaze the sides prior to planting of trees. Otherwise, your trees will
be sitting in a clay pot for over a year (or until frost heaving breaks up
the sides of the hole). This generally results in literal drowning of tree
roots.Ed
pinewoodel@hotmail.com wrote:
> just did an archive search and found nothing relevant.... ive got 200
> holes to dig for trees this spring in our heavy clay. Was able to
> borrow once a Gravely garden tractor with a hole digging attachment.
> Its a rorary drill for planting , digs a hole about 16" wide and 16"
> deep.Its advantage is that it grinds up the clay. If i had the
> physical stamina and was built like a gorilla i could consider hand
> digging but the clay would come out in spade size blocks, not so nice
> for roots. Graveleys are a heavy duty machine and not every one knows
> they make a hole digger. However my only other option at present is to
> find a way to attach an old 9" post hole auger i bought to the loader
> of my farmall M tractor ( they don't have 3 pt. hitches). Has anyone
> seen a post hole auger fited to a loader of a tractor? I figure with
> this configuration i could drill multiple holes and break up the
> clay.How do you all dig holes? minnesota del
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