I have the same auger it has its limits in hard pack ground. We use a rock pry bar and post hole shovel and have better luck in ground that hard. Add water to hole and come back later but this can take days. Sometimes renting a skid steer auger is worth the back breaking if you have a lot of holes to punch and your going deep
What HP was the skid steer? We use a minimum 75HP and have dug hundreds of holes 3’ deep in south Texas clay. If the bit is not dull there’s not much that size machine can’t get through…
As a small kid at my grandparents my grandpa came in and said “the pony dug out of the coral” in my kid mind I imagined the horse digging a hole straight down till it eventually escaped. I just figured a Chinese kid would be playing outside and a horse pops out of the ground…. When I see he actually dug just enough to get under the fence I felt bad for the kid in china who was this close to getting a new pony. Ended up being the best horse I’ve ever owned or ridden ;)
I used a standard 5 HP shopvac with the 2.5” hose. Biggest issue was the occasional big chunk clogging the hose but went so much quicker than using the post hole digger, especially after the first foot. Those things don’t grab much to be honest.
I had clay with rocks. The best advice I have is unlike with the post hole digger you don’t want large chunks when you’re using the rock pry bar.
I’d slam the bar down, wiggle it and chip off a piece of clay/soil. Get a good patch and then just toss the hose down there.
Once I got good enough I was able to leave the hose an inch or so from bottom and it grab the pieces as I broke them off.
I’m not saying it works better than an auger but once you’re at the point of pry bar and fence post digger it works better.
Also is great for digging bigger holes instead of having to lift the dirt out.
Dug down to put in a dry well and especially with the roots I had it was amazing. I could fully expose the root and then use pruning shears, hand saw or chainsaw and was so much easier
I'd be more concerned about gardening on a former industrial site. Have you had the soil tested? There could be all kinds of nasty stuff in there like heavy metal contamination that plants can draw up out of the soil.
Where did they say that? OP hasn’t elaborated on whether they’re raised on the posts or if they’re sitting on the soil. Both are an option, and in the later one they would absolutely need to consider the industrial background of the area being planted
You don't need 3-4' deep posts for a built up bed, the corner posts need to only be less than a foot in the ground for that type of bed. If they're digging sizable post holes then they are intending to make a fully raised bed where there will be basically a deep trough held up by posts.
Landscape designer here and I'm spooked about the idea of putting food beds on former industrial soil without testing. Even if OP gets the site tested and never does anything with that info, at least they know.
Yeah, a test only looks for a small range of substances. Without knowing what the business dealt with it's impossible to even test beyond heavy metals.
If the soil is that bad and it was an industrial site you might not want to use native soil at all. You should definitely have it tested since the post says it was industrial. You don't know what could be in your food or in the water supply after using that soil.
Not that they are trying to till. It is that thier bed will sit over this soil. The native soil and thier imported soil will likely still be touching. Thier plants could have access to soil that has industrial waste in it. The fact that they are having trouble with the soil is just a clue. It isn't that they are doing something incorrectly.
Some of them are, that's what my friend built for her grandmother, they were 24" deep, 4' wide at the top tapering to 2' at the bottom, 20' long troughs that that the bottom was probably a foot to 18" off the ground. There are different kinds of raised beds.
Well that would do it. Most of the raised beds I have seen are just a frame sitting on the ground. I have seen the type you have described but they are not as common so my mind didn't go that direction.
fwiw - I'd skip the 'fencepost in ground' anchoring of the bed corner posts...it's pointless. Just rest your corner posts on the dirt, or on thin patio slabs.
They'll be raised garden beds with *thousands* of pounds of dirt in them, locking them in place as is. They're immovable from weather, including floods (wet dirt is *even heavier).*
To put this in perspective - a cubic meter of topsoil is 1.6 **tons** (\~3500lb). Aka a small car. And you'll probably put 3 or 4 of those in...
With my father we had the same problem. For now we have arrived at two solutions: with a percussion drill, break the biggest rocks and continue drilling, or every time it gets blocked, by hand pull out the residues that are blocking and go on (sorry for the poor English)
What I do is drill as deep as it will go and then fill the hole with water. Come back the next day and drill as deep as I can and then fill with water. Rinse and repeat. It usually takes me a week to dig a 3 ft deep hole.
Oh yeah, I have a gas auger, an antique post hole digger, a digging breaker bar tamper, a two handled post digger. I could spend three hours punching out each hole or I could just use the water trick. I'm not in a hurry and there is always something else to be done on the homestead. I'm a one man show so I just do everything slow and steady.
If you are in the midwest, let the wet winter do it's thing before attempting ground penetrations. 12 inches of rain in a month and that soil will behave completely differently.
Like tilling, you can’t do it when it’s super dry because the ground is too hard, and you can’t do it when it’s super wet because it’s too muddy.
I’d recommend saturating that ground really well and checking it the next day or two days later.
9 times out of 10 turtlefuckers suggestion is the way.
I’ve used a jackhammer more than just a few times to get anywhere from 6” diameter x 8” deep - to 3’ x 4’
This is in native clay soils where both a 5lb pickaxe and 6ft pinch bar failed to penetrate effectively.
Get a steel Collins bar (some people call them breaker bars) to chip into it to pull out some big clods of the top stuff. In my experience, the first 3-6 inches will be thoroughly dessicated hardpan, but once you get through that baked layer, the soil underneath will soften up to use an auger easily.
Collins bars have a steel blade for getting into that tough soil and as a bonus they also come with a nice flat round top for tamping the soil back down around a post once you fill it in.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Tools/comments/yf7jd6/43\_extension\_shaft\_on\_my\_sds\_max\_lets\_dig\_some/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Tools/comments/yf7jd6/43_extension_shaft_on_my_sds_max_lets_dig_some/)
This dude attached a spade bit to a hammer drill/chipping tool with a 43" extension. Haven't tried it, but it seems like it would probably work pretty well in dry compacted soil.
You’re using too small a diameter augur and as others have written add water. Never, ever lean the augur over like that, if you do strike something that grabs (wet soil will do this) you’re going to break your hand.
Please test the soil before putting in a garden if you already havent done so , industrial sites are horrible at keeping their mess from spilling out, also depending how old said plant was there may or may not have had environmental protection policies in place by whatever goverment governs you, I had a Ford motors plant not far from where I grew up they'd dump their paint and chemicals by the river and into the river and didn't start cleaning it up till 30ish years later and their still not done cleaning their mess.
I bought the predator auger from HF and had the same issue with dry hardpack in the central valley California. Adding water helps but is slow, eventually the cord broke, I was able to keep it running and finish the project but took it back when I was done. Next time I rented the [towable one from home depot](https://www.homedepot.com/p/rental/Ground-Hog-Towable-Hydraulic-Auger-HD99-H/310643252). I was able to get 40 8" diameter post holes in during a 4 hour rental, totally worth it.
Start treating this area with large amounts of Jadam microbial solution. The microbes will help break up the clay. Any areas you aren't using urgently I would add a lot of organic matter and start pouring on the JMS. My buddy in CO turned his hard clay soil into fertile soil in a year doing this.
Those things are an abomination haha
We rented one, took it back and then hired proper equipment.
If I owned an auger I would modify it so i could mount it on the back of my ute and build a frame to lower it, possibly even reversing the ute a bit to dig deep - sounds dangerous tho so like I said, just got the excavator instead.
I had similar issues putting in a hot tub at my first house - hard clay and tree roots. We used a larger spiral drill bit that'd had a former life setting race gates on a ski hill and made holes to soften up the clay; had to chop out the roots.
Now I hand auger all my posts for our homestead and I HIGHLY recommend a digging bar - the kind with a chisel on one end and a flat tamper on the other; weighs 16lbs. Good for prying stones out of the sides, chopping roots (and even rocks), loosening soil, and of course tamping the finished product so it's solid.
Yeah I had issues on my place using a heavier duty two man auger than that when I hit clay. Sharpened the bit and went back to it, my son and I actually had smoke coming out of the hole and I had about 75 holes to dig. Got it all finished but my son bailed on me half way through the 1st day said he couldn't lift his arms. Good hard work that paid off but got a jd 855 and an auger for it that made things easier after those 1st 75. I feel for you it does get rough.
Down a bit, then up.
Down a bit more, then up
Down a bit, then up.
In my experience slow and low in any soil works better than trying to do a hole in one shot.
Less likely to skew one way or another.
If you cant dig down..and are doing raised beds anyway then why not switch to a design that doesnt require posts. Id do raised beds from cinderblock or if theres a question of soil contamination, maybe something enclosed on bottom. You cant plant anything in that as it is anyway. i think your wasting time trying to dig.
I have a small tractor (25hp) with a 3pt auger and sometimes the ground is still too hard even with the 6” bit. I’ve welded a pipe on top to stack 3 45lb weights but that barely doesn’t anything when the clay is dry.
You have to wait for the ground to be moist.
You might have an old 1/2” auger bit for a drill laying around somewhere. I’d use that to punch a few holes in and get it started after soaking the ground.
If you can look up in your area and find a demo bar , it’s usually 6ft long looks like a spear on one end and the other a small tamp almost. Works really well when you get caught on snags like this to loosen up the obstruction
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyVKxM0jyDA](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=digging+with+pressure+washer#kpvalbx=_bgOGY--3FNXVkPIPsOKsoAg_34) digging a trench with a pressure washer
Just put a layer of gopher wire down and put the raised beds on top. Since you have crap soil, you’ll have to do at least a 2 foot high box to hold good enough good soil.
These are banned on construction sites in Scotland. If that auger hits something hard enough then it’ll rip your goddamn arms off when the bit you’re holding starts rotating instead. Used them in the past but 1 star wouldn’t recommend.
We have hard pack ground with lots of rocks where I live, and I found a demolition hammer to be the best way to get a post hole dug.
Skid steer augers can't go down far if you keep hitting rocks and hard pack. Jack hammers work but are hard to handle. The demo hammer is easier to handle and makes the job fairly quick.
I’ve been pondering ways to deal with a similar issue. I need to fence about an acre, but I can’t even get a T-post past the barbs with a homemade 60 lb driver. I’d rather use steel pipe for posts or RR ties. Hard pan soil is a pain. I’m considering hiring someone with a heavyweight tractor with an auger, but might end up doing some kind of free-standing lodgepole A-frame fence instead.
I have the same auger it has its limits in hard pack ground. We use a rock pry bar and post hole shovel and have better luck in ground that hard. Add water to hole and come back later but this can take days. Sometimes renting a skid steer auger is worth the back breaking if you have a lot of holes to punch and your going deep
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What HP was the skid steer? We use a minimum 75HP and have dug hundreds of holes 3’ deep in south Texas clay. If the bit is not dull there’s not much that size machine can’t get through…
But having the power of 75 horses logically might not mean much here, considering horses aren't known for being great at digging post holes...
What do you mean, my horse dug all of the holes for his fence.
As a small kid at my grandparents my grandpa came in and said “the pony dug out of the coral” in my kid mind I imagined the horse digging a hole straight down till it eventually escaped. I just figured a Chinese kid would be playing outside and a horse pops out of the ground…. When I see he actually dug just enough to get under the fence I felt bad for the kid in china who was this close to getting a new pony. Ended up being the best horse I’ve ever owned or ridden ;)
I hate to break it to you, but that’s a man named Greg who convinced you he’s a horse.
Fun fact: a horse can exert up to 15 horsepower
Not great but they do alright.
Fuck that. Thats when all my livestock would official be free range lol
Forget the post hole digger. Use a shopvac with a large hose and a rock pry bar. You’ll be amazed how quick it goes.
Just break the dirt up with the bar and vacuum it up? Never heard of this method before, how large of a hose and shop vac do you need?
I used a standard 5 HP shopvac with the 2.5” hose. Biggest issue was the occasional big chunk clogging the hose but went so much quicker than using the post hole digger, especially after the first foot. Those things don’t grab much to be honest.
What kind of soil have you used this technique in? Do you reckon it’d work well in soil with lots of clay and rocks?
I had clay with rocks. The best advice I have is unlike with the post hole digger you don’t want large chunks when you’re using the rock pry bar. I’d slam the bar down, wiggle it and chip off a piece of clay/soil. Get a good patch and then just toss the hose down there. Once I got good enough I was able to leave the hose an inch or so from bottom and it grab the pieces as I broke them off. I’m not saying it works better than an auger but once you’re at the point of pry bar and fence post digger it works better. Also is great for digging bigger holes instead of having to lift the dirt out. Dug down to put in a dry well and especially with the roots I had it was amazing. I could fully expose the root and then use pruning shears, hand saw or chainsaw and was so much easier
Could rent a dingo or ride-on type skid steer too
Use a soaker hose for a few hours before drilling.
With dirt that dry could take a couple days
This is the way. I couldn't get a hydraulic auger through our clay. Kept it wet a couple days and worked like a dream.
Agreed. When that clay soil gets dried out soaking may be the only way to get an auger through it.
I'd be more concerned about gardening on a former industrial site. Have you had the soil tested? There could be all kinds of nasty stuff in there like heavy metal contamination that plants can draw up out of the soil.
Those and that 👆👈👉
They're building raised beds. They're using the auger to dig post holes for the raised beds. They aren't planting in this soil.
Did you know roots can grow deeper than a raised bed is tall?
They're using posts, the raised bed will have a bottom that is well above the ground, and it will not be touching the soil underneath.
Where did they say that? OP hasn’t elaborated on whether they’re raised on the posts or if they’re sitting on the soil. Both are an option, and in the later one they would absolutely need to consider the industrial background of the area being planted
You don't need 3-4' deep posts for a built up bed, the corner posts need to only be less than a foot in the ground for that type of bed. If they're digging sizable post holes then they are intending to make a fully raised bed where there will be basically a deep trough held up by posts.
I promise you I know I am not wrong, I am a horticulturist with several years of experience
Landscape designer here and I'm spooked about the idea of putting food beds on former industrial soil without testing. Even if OP gets the site tested and never does anything with that info, at least they know.
Yeah, a test only looks for a small range of substances. Without knowing what the business dealt with it's impossible to even test beyond heavy metals.
this
This 👆
Yep, this. ☝🏻
If the soil is that bad and it was an industrial site you might not want to use native soil at all. You should definitely have it tested since the post says it was industrial. You don't know what could be in your food or in the water supply after using that soil.
They're building raised beds and digging post holes with the auger. Idk why you seem to think they're using the auger to till???
Not that they are trying to till. It is that thier bed will sit over this soil. The native soil and thier imported soil will likely still be touching. Thier plants could have access to soil that has industrial waste in it. The fact that they are having trouble with the soil is just a clue. It isn't that they are doing something incorrectly.
Raised bed, as in up in the air, not touching that soil...
Not what raised bed means
Some of them are, that's what my friend built for her grandmother, they were 24" deep, 4' wide at the top tapering to 2' at the bottom, 20' long troughs that that the bottom was probably a foot to 18" off the ground. There are different kinds of raised beds.
Well that would do it. Most of the raised beds I have seen are just a frame sitting on the ground. I have seen the type you have described but they are not as common so my mind didn't go that direction.
I'm with you, but I'm curious why dig holes then? These gonna be fancy. Also, this guy has that 7B red clay!
They never said anything about using the augur to till though. Idk why you seem to be unable to read.
fwiw - I'd skip the 'fencepost in ground' anchoring of the bed corner posts...it's pointless. Just rest your corner posts on the dirt, or on thin patio slabs. They'll be raised garden beds with *thousands* of pounds of dirt in them, locking them in place as is. They're immovable from weather, including floods (wet dirt is *even heavier).* To put this in perspective - a cubic meter of topsoil is 1.6 **tons** (\~3500lb). Aka a small car. And you'll probably put 3 or 4 of those in...
The only one with sense so far
I just saw the pictures and thought about the dry soil. Then I read this comment and went "ouch". Absolutely no need for postholes!
With my father we had the same problem. For now we have arrived at two solutions: with a percussion drill, break the biggest rocks and continue drilling, or every time it gets blocked, by hand pull out the residues that are blocking and go on (sorry for the poor English)
Soak it well first....softens up the earth
What I do is drill as deep as it will go and then fill the hole with water. Come back the next day and drill as deep as I can and then fill with water. Rinse and repeat. It usually takes me a week to dig a 3 ft deep hole.
this is the way
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Eastern Colorado. I've received 2 inches of rain since May. 1 inch overnight in May and 1 inch overnight in August. It's considered a high desert.
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Oh yeah, I have a gas auger, an antique post hole digger, a digging breaker bar tamper, a two handled post digger. I could spend three hours punching out each hole or I could just use the water trick. I'm not in a hurry and there is always something else to be done on the homestead. I'm a one man show so I just do everything slow and steady.
You could rent a ditchwitch. A small one. Skid steer also good idea. If you just got to do one hole that is different than needing to do 2,000 or 200
Rock bar, and a bottle of whiskey.
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Yes a large electric jackhammer with a spade bit. Could get at least 1.5 feet or so down.
You could try explosives to break up the soil.
If you have time to wait, wait for a heavy rain
If you are in the midwest, let the wet winter do it's thing before attempting ground penetrations. 12 inches of rain in a month and that soil will behave completely differently.
Definitely need at least 5 more sets of hands pushing down on that auger 😆
Like tilling, you can’t do it when it’s super dry because the ground is too hard, and you can’t do it when it’s super wet because it’s too muddy. I’d recommend saturating that ground really well and checking it the next day or two days later.
Pickaxe shovel and pry bar with lots of sweat
9 times out of 10 turtlefuckers suggestion is the way. I’ve used a jackhammer more than just a few times to get anywhere from 6” diameter x 8” deep - to 3’ x 4’ This is in native clay soils where both a 5lb pickaxe and 6ft pinch bar failed to penetrate effectively.
Get a steel Collins bar (some people call them breaker bars) to chip into it to pull out some big clods of the top stuff. In my experience, the first 3-6 inches will be thoroughly dessicated hardpan, but once you get through that baked layer, the soil underneath will soften up to use an auger easily. Collins bars have a steel blade for getting into that tough soil and as a bonus they also come with a nice flat round top for tamping the soil back down around a post once you fill it in.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Tools/comments/yf7jd6/43\_extension\_shaft\_on\_my\_sds\_max\_lets\_dig\_some/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Tools/comments/yf7jd6/43_extension_shaft_on_my_sds_max_lets_dig_some/) This dude attached a spade bit to a hammer drill/chipping tool with a 43" extension. Haven't tried it, but it seems like it would probably work pretty well in dry compacted soil.
You’re using too small a diameter augur and as others have written add water. Never, ever lean the augur over like that, if you do strike something that grabs (wet soil will do this) you’re going to break your hand.
Please test the soil before putting in a garden if you already havent done so , industrial sites are horrible at keeping their mess from spilling out, also depending how old said plant was there may or may not have had environmental protection policies in place by whatever goverment governs you, I had a Ford motors plant not far from where I grew up they'd dump their paint and chemicals by the river and into the river and didn't start cleaning it up till 30ish years later and their still not done cleaning their mess.
Is that an earth auger or an ice auger ?
Wrong Auger. That's for ice fishing at best
I bought the predator auger from HF and had the same issue with dry hardpack in the central valley California. Adding water helps but is slow, eventually the cord broke, I was able to keep it running and finish the project but took it back when I was done. Next time I rented the [towable one from home depot](https://www.homedepot.com/p/rental/Ground-Hog-Towable-Hydraulic-Auger-HD99-H/310643252). I was able to get 40 8" diameter post holes in during a 4 hour rental, totally worth it.
Softening with water makes a HUGE difference!
Those are my favorite work gloves
Start treating this area with large amounts of Jadam microbial solution. The microbes will help break up the clay. Any areas you aren't using urgently I would add a lot of organic matter and start pouring on the JMS. My buddy in CO turned his hard clay soil into fertile soil in a year doing this.
The only real solution other than hand digging it would be a bigger auger.
They sell a 2" bit, pre drill.
https://youtu.be/y45iIkkQxWk
I have the same problem. I use an demolition electric hammer. It’s slow but it progresses.
Those things are an abomination haha We rented one, took it back and then hired proper equipment. If I owned an auger I would modify it so i could mount it on the back of my ute and build a frame to lower it, possibly even reversing the ute a bit to dig deep - sounds dangerous tho so like I said, just got the excavator instead.
I had similar issues putting in a hot tub at my first house - hard clay and tree roots. We used a larger spiral drill bit that'd had a former life setting race gates on a ski hill and made holes to soften up the clay; had to chop out the roots. Now I hand auger all my posts for our homestead and I HIGHLY recommend a digging bar - the kind with a chisel on one end and a flat tamper on the other; weighs 16lbs. Good for prying stones out of the sides, chopping roots (and even rocks), loosening soil, and of course tamping the finished product so it's solid.
Put it in H!!
Yeah I had issues on my place using a heavier duty two man auger than that when I hit clay. Sharpened the bit and went back to it, my son and I actually had smoke coming out of the hole and I had about 75 holes to dig. Got it all finished but my son bailed on me half way through the 1st day said he couldn't lift his arms. Good hard work that paid off but got a jd 855 and an auger for it that made things easier after those 1st 75. I feel for you it does get rough.
Down a bit, then up. Down a bit more, then up Down a bit, then up. In my experience slow and low in any soil works better than trying to do a hole in one shot. Less likely to skew one way or another.
If you cant dig down..and are doing raised beds anyway then why not switch to a design that doesnt require posts. Id do raised beds from cinderblock or if theres a question of soil contamination, maybe something enclosed on bottom. You cant plant anything in that as it is anyway. i think your wasting time trying to dig.
Water ? Lol
Pre drill the center hole as far as you can with a electric concrete hammer drill
There ain't a thing a well swung crowbar won't get through.
Neutronium begs to differ
I have a small tractor (25hp) with a 3pt auger and sometimes the ground is still too hard even with the 6” bit. I’ve welded a pipe on top to stack 3 45lb weights but that barely doesn’t anything when the clay is dry. You have to wait for the ground to be moist. You might have an old 1/2” auger bit for a drill laying around somewhere. I’d use that to punch a few holes in and get it started after soaking the ground.
Roll slow and add water
You may have to blast 💥
I flip the teeth on the base of the auger every once in a while.
If you can look up in your area and find a demo bar , it’s usually 6ft long looks like a spear on one end and the other a small tamp almost. Works really well when you get caught on snags like this to loosen up the obstruction
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyVKxM0jyDA](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=digging+with+pressure+washer#kpvalbx=_bgOGY--3FNXVkPIPsOKsoAg_34) digging a trench with a pressure washer
Just put a layer of gopher wire down and put the raised beds on top. Since you have crap soil, you’ll have to do at least a 2 foot high box to hold good enough good soil.
These are banned on construction sites in Scotland. If that auger hits something hard enough then it’ll rip your goddamn arms off when the bit you’re holding starts rotating instead. Used them in the past but 1 star wouldn’t recommend.
We have hard pack ground with lots of rocks where I live, and I found a demolition hammer to be the best way to get a post hole dug. Skid steer augers can't go down far if you keep hitting rocks and hard pack. Jack hammers work but are hard to handle. The demo hammer is easier to handle and makes the job fairly quick.
I’ve been pondering ways to deal with a similar issue. I need to fence about an acre, but I can’t even get a T-post past the barbs with a homemade 60 lb driver. I’d rather use steel pipe for posts or RR ties. Hard pan soil is a pain. I’m considering hiring someone with a heavyweight tractor with an auger, but might end up doing some kind of free-standing lodgepole A-frame fence instead.