What digging tool do you suggest?

18 years ago

Greetings! I guess I have a "bog" garden now. My backyard is forrested and swampy. This weekend I dug a hole in one of the lower, wetter parts of the swamp, and now I have a muddy little frog-pond. Once the skunk cabbage and jack-in-the-pulpit come in around it, itÂs going to be a lovely hidden little pond.

I noticed while digging that the first layer of soggy decomposing stuff came up nicely in big shovel-fulls. But water immediately filled my hole, and when I try to dig below the level of the water, to give the pond a bit more depth, I am able to bring up very little soil because it washes off of the shovel. Is there a digging tool suitable for reaching into water and pulling up mud?

Thanks. . .

There are pictures in my blog if anyone is interested. . .

Here is a link that might be useful: my blog

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Comments (13)

kwoods
18 years ago
{{gwi:428782}}
stoloniferous
Original Author
18 years ago
Nice! Thanks! :) Does it have a name?
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greenman28 NorCal 7b/8a
18 years ago
It's a perforated shovel. ;)
They're fantastic for clearing drains...
...or bogs.

Josh
balsam_girl
18 years ago
Wow!

A perforated shovel! I never even heard of such a thing before. I could really use one digging mud. But all I find online are really expensive ones like $60-100! Way out of my price range for a shovel! Does anybody make/sell a less expensive reasonably priced perforated shovel?
greenman28 NorCal 7b/8a
18 years ago
Check with ACE Hardware (no, I don't work for them anymore... ;) ) - you can special order items from their catalogues. They might be able to get you a better deal. I've used them for specialized pitch-forks before.

Josh
balsam_girl
18 years ago
Josh, I'll try Ace. Otherwise maybe a person could make one out of an ordinary $10 shovel, altho that's a LOT of holes to drill...
greenman28 NorCal 7b/8a
18 years ago
That is a lot of holes to drill...

...but, if one had a drill press or a large hole-punch, it might be worth experimenting.

Josh
atokadawn
18 years ago
How about a slotted serving spoon? You know the bigger ones? I got one from the dollar store.
balsam_girl
18 years ago
I was removing some wet slurry-like mud yesterday and sure could have used one of these perforated shovels.

I'll bet you could drill a few holes in an ordinary $10 shovel and it would work good enough.
kwoods
18 years ago
"Does anybody make/sell a less expensive reasonably priced perforated shovel?"

You can get what's called a "rice" shovel for around 20 bucks... used for the same purpose but only has a few perfs.
balsam_girl
18 years ago
kwoods,

Yes, I've found that "rice Shovel" googling around. But why make one out of a $10 shovel by drilling a few holes?

I'm favoring a long-handled wide blade shovel, good both for digging and dredging up loose stuff.
balsam_girl
18 years ago
Well, I bought a wide-blade, long-handle digging shovel yesterday at Menards for $9 (on sale). Unfortunately they were out of the plastic handle ones, so I had to get one with a wooden handle. But that's okay. My neighbor has a drill press and is going to drill some holes in it for me.

I might just have a $9 perforated shovel shortly....
greenman28 NorCal 7b/8a
18 years ago
Perfect! the drill press will save a lot of time and mess!

Let us know how it goes!

Josh