That’s right. Power tools. A cordless drill and a fancy drill bit to be exact. Why garden, when you can garden with more power. (insert Tim Allen barking noise) While we’re at it, let’s throw in some paint sticks.
When you’re planting a garden, planting seeds might sound easy: wiggle your finger in some dirt, plant the seed, and move on to the next one. But when you’ve got a ton of seeds, you’re bent over, the sun is baking on you, and your 3 year old wants to help, it gets to be quite tedious. Enter the drill and bit.
I used a 1” flat wood boring bit along with my cordless drill to drill holes into the dirt. Doug and my dad said it’d work better in dry soil, but I liked the clean look of the holes in damp soil.
Drill, drop the seed, and cover. Move on to the next hole. Repeat times a few thousand.
Another tip when marking your plants, is to use a paint stick and sharpie. Don’t go to Lowe’s for the paint sticks, the guy said he couldn’t give or sell them to me. Go to Home Depot, ask the guy for a bunch, he’ll give you way too many, and ask you if you want a bunch more. For free. Look how nice it looks!
And you won’t lose your plants.
For the lettuce, I used clothesline (dollar store) to rope off the area.
Want yet another tip? Use an IKEA bag for weeds. It’s washable, it’s only 59 cents or something, and it’s easy to carry around with you. I weed, empty the weeds, then bring the bag back in with my supplies.
Our garden is actually doing really well this year. We got a sprinkler, and I’ve been going out there every day to water it, and weed for 15 minutes at a time. It’s not a lot of work, and it’s keeping things under control. Hopefully we’ll have a pretty nice pay out at the end of the season.
Click here for more pics of our garden from previous years.
See, I can still write a short blog post. HA! (Take that, Doug.)
Drill bit tip courtesy of my dad, paint sticks courtesy of Doug’s parents.