i've found it is much easier to get some rows planted from on high (without having to bend to drop seeds) if i use a hollow tube to drop the seeds down. also use it to space them out by sliding it along a few inches at a time.
now i'm looking into getting a longer one as the one i'm using now is only a few feet long. one four feet long would be nice as then i could plant rows i can't reach into as easily, plus not as much bending.
a 1x1 with a routered grove in it and then covered by a thin slat would also work if you didn't care about round and light.
pvc tubing is probably quite easy. bamboo looks nicer, but i think it's hard to get all the nodes cut through for the seeds to drop.
small funnel or flare at the top is also a help for those with hands that don't quite hit the end of the tube as easily.
I love your idea. Will keep it in mind when I get ready to plant beans in the garden. I have a couple of 2"w x 1/2"d x 8' long sticks that I have marked on one side in 3" increments and the other side in
4" increments.. They certainly help getting a reasonable straight line and equal spacing. Add in the tubing it would be pretty easy.
Handy tool I use in the garden is a long reach pick up grabber. Saves my back in the fall picking up chestnuts and I guess you could also use it for planting seeds.
anything that saves bending over to some degree helps. i like to try to improve with low tech methods as much as i can.
last year i planted a great number of rows by sitting on the ground and using a hand trowel. very slow work. then towards the end of the planting i said to myself that this was really silly so i stood up, grabbed the pointed hoe and did my seed drills with that. then i walked along and dropped the seeds about at the right spacing. the problem with that method is that the wind is rarely calm here enough to get a straight drop so i had to lead the wind. meaning some fiddling with the seeds that missed getting them nudged into place. still speeded up the planting by quite a bit. this year i hope to get it all done in a week instead of three weeks.
the pvc tube came along as it was fallen on the side of the road from someone hauling stuff. i hate leaving trash along the road so picked it up. this spring i was pondering how to beat the wind drift without getting too complicated and so i trimmed the broken bits off and it worked well enough to make me want a nicer wooden alternative.
i think in the back of my mind was the example of the pelletized seeds and the air hoses to move them around for mass planting in greenhouse operations.
i have a bamboo flute that hollowed out one of the nodes to get the right length. very nice sound.
haven't worked with bamboo when it is green ever so can't say how easy splitting would be. to hollow out with a super long drill bit would likely be a challenge, but possible as the bit could at least self center using the width of the shaft to guide the point. just would need different long bits based upon size of bamboo tube itself.
what is a steamboat? i've not heard this expression before as applied to bamboo or anything to do with gardening. just the usual river/lake chuffing along kind...
bamboo is very useful, but around here the types that grow don't get big and are pests. some of my recent readings in the permaculture books puts plantings of them on islands in ponds to keep them from spreading.
glad to see you got out from under the truck. hope things are well for you down there? :)
six holes, C scale, actually too long for my hands to play comfortably (my pinkie finger is too small to cover the hole reliably and my hands cramp after a while) but i don't have the heart to sell it.
it was smoked and shellacked.
ah, thus the smoking and shellacking...
likely would work somewhat other than the bounce of the seeds, but if you keep the angle shallow enough that would probably be controllable.
if it flowered/fruited it was life cycle. usually the entire stand will go at once.
you're the first person i've ever heard say they are having a hard time getting it to spread. :) usually i hear about it the other way (that it's too invasive), but perhaps you have one of the slower growing varieties that are supposedly not so invasive...
i just turned 50 this year, the 70s were tough enough. i did my time in the stupidity trenches. learned my lessons. got on with life. being stoned is just fine, not for me any more tho.
'k. take good care of yourself.
:p
what type of beans you plant this season?
i have some pics of seedlings that i have to edit/post. decided i would do a sprout group as they are very fun/cute/interesting, but i'm not in that mood tonight so...
it's been rather cool here the past few nights. we have plants to put out in the gardens, but with it being too cool i don't want to plant for a bit yet. we'll hold off a few more days and then see what the forecast is like.
instead i've been weaving a trellis for climbing beans. the old grape trellis gets a second life. it's in an unfenced area so i have to come up with some deterrents for critters and hope there is a harvest. it's overflow area, not too hard to enclose with a tall fence, so i will likely do that at some point in the future, but i didn't want to spend money on fencing if i can get away with less expensive measures first. looks like a great crop of strawberries this year even in that back overflow patch. except the deer have been through and we have woodchucks around too. i'm still determined to give that back patch a try without too many added measures. it is after all partly a decoy area so that the critters can munch on that and leave the rest of the yard alone...
it is it's own reward. i shouldn't say anything. i read a 30something book series this past winter that was mostly useless fluff...
i hope they work out well for you. the onions are all planted here for now. i have some seeds i should scatter someplace and a few odds and ends to plant, but the mass beds are in. some already well up and growing strong (they like worms/worm poo).
our springs seem to be about that the past few years. the crocuses are up and gone rather quickly.
probably the best tulip year i've ever had in terms of quality/disease pressures/weather/bloom length. which seems rather strange in comparison to how the crocuses did. you'd think that the tulips would do better with a little cooler weather too, but in the end it was the mostly lack of rain and few frosts that helped them the most.
you're sick. :) some day i'll have to put some of my snow pics on-line just to keep you appreciative of that heat.
let me know how they turn out. i'm always interested in bean/pea/peapod tales.
that is part of the reason for doing it, plus the cuteness/artistic aspects. i hope one of my shots of a turnip seedling turns out as there was an ant carrying a dandelion seed (including the bit of fluff/fuzz) going by. the next rainy day that project is top of the list.
oh, wow, good one, i could get shots of queen-anne's-lace which should be close enough for carrot family...
tulips are marginally edible for most people (a wimpy onion taste), i'd not eat them here as it's much easier to grow onions/garlic anyways. tulip bulbs i can often gift or trade for other plants. the other aspect i like them for is they are heavy pollen producers (the sticky pollen that doesn't float around nearly as much as some other pollens) and the bumblebees and other bees are quite fun to watch harvesting from them.
many wildflowers are not common here. almost all borders of farm fields are sprayed or mowed to kill them off or keep them from blooming. even some of the rare and endangered flowers get hit by careless operators.
we consider it a part of the entertainment... yesterday and today's funny phrases: "Christmas bacon" and "crapass".
ok, i won't torture you with snow pictures... at least not for the near future.
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