This image of a dibble was released into the public domain by Pearson Scott Foresman. Original image can be found at commons.wikimedia.org

I’m fascinated by the range of tools created by humans to make certain jobs easier.  This beautiful gallery of Antique Farm Tools from England, Scotland and Wales includes such specialty implements as turnip hooks, beet knives, and various dibbers (also called dibbles), which are wood or metal implements for digging holes into which seeds, seedlings and bulbs are planted.

The aforementioned site has pictures of common handheld wooden dibbers, as well as long-handled metal ones, and crop-specific specialty dibbles, including one specifically designed for potatoes.

I typically just use a stick, but I’ve been designing an adjustable multi-dibble in my head for years.  Over the weekend, I finally got around to building a prototype, using a leftover chunk of 2×6 lumber, a couple of old cabinet handles, and a handful of hex head bolts.  I designed it to create holes using a plan of diamonds, to maximize the number of plants per foot of row.

Once I finished drilling the pilot holes and screwing the bolts into place, I used my new multi-dibble to plant garlic (one of my favorite crops and year after year one of the most successful in my garden).  Specifically, I planted out 28 bulbs of hardneck garlic (a porcelain and a purple stripe – I don’t remember the varieties, as I’ve been planting them for years), the biggest and best saved from last year’s crop.  Each bulb contained approximately 6.5 cloves, so I should end up with 182 bulbs of garlic next year, somewhere around the 4th of July or slightly earlier.

Though there’s room for improvement, I’m pleased with the multi-dibble.  One day I hope to create a more elaborate version, with adjustable dibbles to allow for different hole spacing.