December 11, 2016 – Dibble, a great gift for the Gardener

          This weekend I happened to visit the Winterfest shopping at Tryon International Equestrian Center in Mill Springs, North Carolina.  The craft sales were in little shops this year making a nicer experience for the shopper.

          My dear friend and I were admiring the carved wooden items at one particular vendor. She reached out and was admiring a beautiful, hand turned dibble and said, “What’s this?” yet immediately answered her own question remembering, “Oh, it’s a dibble, I asked that once before.”

          I smiled at her impressed she knew what it was and now that I think of it, it might have been me she asked the first time she saw one.

          To a gardener your dibble can be something of beauty as well a something useful.         

          When I started my first garden I didn’t have many tools.  I had a shovel, an iron rake, a hoe, a trowel, and a hand cultivator.  My first garden was a 50 foot by 50 foot portion of a fallow field that was turned over by a local farmer in bib overalls driving a farm tractor.

          I asked for a little garden and I got what he considered was a ‘little’ garden.  I was in Missouri and that was the typical size of a home vegetable garden.  The soil was rich black clay.  When it got wet – it was like muck. If you stepped into the garden after a downpour your shoe or shoes would often be sucked off your feet.  Failing to balance on one foot as you tried to pull the stuck shoe out of the muck you’d often end up barefoot with wet black muck squishing up between your toes.

          When Christmas came around, my Dad sent me my first dibble.

          Dibble:  A pointed implement used to make holes in the ground in which to set out plants or to plant seeds.

          Below is a collection of various dibbles and a few others that are on the market today.  I do suggest you get one with a metal point as it will last much longer.  I now own three and they are different shapes and sizes.  My favorite one has a comfortable handle and is light weight.

          They are very useful.  Once your garden soil has been turned and raked free of debris, you can go along and poke a hole as deep as you need and as wide as you need by simply rotating the dibble as you tip it outwards.  Very handy for bedding out plants in prepared soil. Dibble a hole, pop the bedding plant out of the plastic tray, set the plant in the hole and pull the soil in to cover the base of the plant.  You can dibble several holes within reach and plant and then move to the next section.

          Also, very useful when you want to get certain vegetables off to a grand start – giving them extra nice soil when you plant the seed.

          An example would be a row of winter squash.  I often turn the soil, hand cultivate it into a hill or long mound. Then I dibble every few inches along the ridge. Next, I fill the holes with starting medium to about 1 inch from the top, place my seed, and fill again with starting medium.  I am giving the new seeding extra special soil for a good start.  I gently water in with a fine spray.

          When it comes to long beautiful Daikon radishes, I do the same thing.  I plant only one seed per hole.

          The first year at this house I had a full length bank that was bare and waiting to be landscaped which I call the driveway garden. I turned over an 8-foot long by 4-foot wide patch and raked it smooth.  Using the dibble I planted early yellow crocus in 6-inch wide curved paths in order to spell out the word “GOD”.  The next spring, “God” bloomed out in yellow crocus.  Only one edge of one letter was a little wobbly from critter digging during the winter.  And, shame on me, I didn’t think to take a picture of it.  I could see it from my kitchen window where I wash dishes.  Every spring for a few years it came up until I revamped that garden.

          If you need to put an inexpensive item in your favorite gardener’s stocking, look for a dibble at your local gardening store.  I find it a useful garden tool.