Am growing several different morning glory seeds in little toilet paper rolls. I am going to plant the roll & morning glory together. Morning glories hate to have their roots disturbed once they start growing. I bought this metal bulb auger at lowes. Works like a dream. Takes about 15 seconds to make a perfect little hole. Even in very hard dirt. Also works great for losening up hard dirt.

One of my favorite garden tools. Other then planting I use it to get fertilizer deep into the ground around larger trees and shrubs.

Colleen, I am ignorant about tools like this one--is there a handle?

You attach it to your power drill.

Good to know! I actually asked around about these one time and the general opinion seemed to be that they didn't work very well. How large a hole do they make? (looks like maybe 2-3"?)

You do need a decent drill. But nothing like them for planting bulbs. With it I can get 10 bulbs in the ground in the time I could get 1 done with the old style bulb tool.

They work pretty well if you are going straight into dirt, does not work well trying to go through grass, or areas that have lots of tree roots.

So, do you need a corded drill? Or will cordless work okay? Either way would be okay in my case...

What I was really thinking this would work well for was planting potatoes in my garden... does that sound too crazy?

Thank you, Bob. That lets me out,then.

I've actually used those to create drainage in turf....
Takes a strong wrist, and a powerful drill, but those bulb augers are fine for drilling through turf.... If the soil is moist....

This dude had a patch of turf planted below his house, where the heavy equipment had pushed down the clay out of the foundation, and then packed it down good, I wanted to plant water lilies and lotus.... Woulda been sooooo much nicer than a patch of turf!

We drilled out holes as deep as the auger would go.... Filled with gravel, and.... That patch of sod stopped holding water.... I think he made a mistake.

Hmmmm -- "strong wrist" -- might have to get my old bowling wrist brace out!

Yeah on the wrist issue - I'd be toast in seconds. For bulbs, I just take a narrow shovel, stomp, tilt, drop, push back. Goes pretty quickly.

The drill is cool. But the toilet paper roll idea is brilliant! So many finicky flowers that don't take well to transplanting. Thanks for that.

@weedwhacker
Forget the drill for potato planting. I till the garden, stake a piece of twine for a straight line, cut a 3" furrow with my hoe, pour Fertrells 3-2-3 fertilizer in furrow, drop pre-sprouted potato pieces with 12" spacing, and rake soil over top. I'll usually do 3 hilling rake overs during the pre-flower stage. After that the canopy is its own weed block. I do [2] 100' rows.

The auger attaches to a drill. We use a corded drill, it has more power then a cordless. I have been saving empty toilet paper and paper towel rolls all winter. I even had a couple other family members save them too. To make the little pots just make 4 cuts on one of the roll, fold them on and hold it together with a piece of paper tape. Fill with dirt & plant one seed in each one. When big enough to put out in garden, just make your.hole, drop the roll with plant & all. Push some dirt around it, water & enjoy!I

Colleen, have you used that method for planting previously? Even though the cardboard tube will eventually decompose, it seems to me that the plant roots would be pretty much trapped, which would limit the growth of the plant. (but I haven't tried that, so I could certainly be wrong!)

Sandy, I have not used that exact method before but the tape is on pretty loose and should give up it's grip fairly easy for the roots to break through.

Agoo said:Sandy, I have not used that exact method before but the tape is on pretty loose and should give up it's grip fairly easy for the roots to break through.

It certainly sounds like a great use for all those cardboard tubes -- might need to experiment with it myself

(You may very well already know this -- but, as with peat pots, I'd suggest being sure the top rim of the tube is buried in the ground so it doesn't wick the moisture away from the plant.)

I have 2 different sizes of bulb augers and a cordless drill. Planted 34 lily bulbs in clay yesterday and I could even use the auger to amend the soil in the holes. I basically stirred the soil and amendments with the auger and it was much quicker than the previous method. Really makes a difference if you have to amend your soil before planting. DH bought me a newer more powerful drill for Christmas to use with it.

DH bought me a newer more powerful drill for Christmas to use with it.

Kinda funny, the bizzar things we gardeners want/get as gifts for our gardens.