Easiest tool to use for planting lots of bulbs

After digging up my daffodil bulbs that had multipled like crazy, I decided I wanted to replant them all along the ditch next to the road. I put all the bulbs on a screen on top of some wood pallets in a dark corner of the pole barn to dry out. After they were dry, I picked them all up and went through them all removing dead foliage and tossing a few that had gone bad. It turns out I had two bushels of bulbs!!

I knew it would be very labor intensive to try to plant that many hundreds of bulbs by hand so I searched out a tool that would make the job easier. I found that tool in the garden auger. I was told by an electrician friend that a corded drill has more power than a cordless drill. I put a small generator in my RTV and plugged in an extension cord that I had plugged my corded drill into. I attached the garden auger and fired up the generator. It was very powerful and made short work of drilling hundreds of holes to put the bulbs into. I had a helper to plant and we covered all the bulbs up with Michigan peat since that's what I had a pallet of leftover from summer. The auger I bought was heavy duty steel and drilled a great deep hole for the bulbs. It still took a long time to get them all planted. I got hubby to help drill some of the holes too.

I can't wait till next spring to see how it will look. They were all King Alfred daffodills. We have so many deer that I stick to daffs since they're poisonous and the rabbits and deer won't eat them.

I'll post a picture of the auger so you can see. Just thought I'd share this tip for anyone considering planting about a million bulbs. :)

I agree about that the auger is the best way I've found.. although I don't have as many bulbs to plant as most others.. but it just gets down right hot here . . so quicker for me is better.

And Loon.. if you find yourself with just too many of those daffs. to plant *S* I'll take any homeless ones. ~S~

LOL. I don't plan to ever dig up and divide these babies again. They're in a space where they can just spread all they want to. This was way too much work. I could never have planted that many bulbs without this tool.

I did learn a lesson about power though. I never would have known that a corded drill is more powerful than one that runs on batteries. The length of the planting area was far beyond any extention cord length so hooking the drill up to the small generator and driving it down the road worked awesome. I just hope I didn't plant some of them too deep. We have sandy soil in spots and cement in other spots and this tool drilled right through it all. You have to hang onto it good though or it will jerk your shoulder out of socket. :) We spent several hours or more three days in a row planting.

Now that I have this thing I may plant some other types of daffs in different colors. I won't plant anything the deer will eat. I won't babysit anything any more. It's bad enough I have to spray my roses and fruit trees with Liquid Fence to deter the critters.

I have an auger in the toolshed. I don't alway use it but have found it helpful when planting anything in quantity. Even annuals and the like.

~Sharon

I've enjoyed using my mini-auger. I use it to break up small areas of the garden where it wasn't worth dragging out the big equip. And it does make planting bulbs very easy.

It definitely lets you know when you find a root.

The corded drill does work best for me but you do have to watch it when the auger yanks itself free. The cord wraps itself around the auger. I ended up tossing the cord over my shoulder while working and it seemed to help.

I love this handy tool. And they are not expensive. I bought mine at the hardware store for under $20.