How To Set Fence Posts In Dirt

At 15 and eager to observe my starting time real job, I followed up mercilessly on an application I submitted to a farm/canton park that was an easy bike ride abroad. Eventually they gave in and granted an interview.

Over the course of the side by side few years, my interviewer and subsequent first dominate turned out to be an individual with a work ethic beyond anyone I take always met and without a dubiousness will always run into in my lifetime. The homo was just a workhorse and at such an impressionable point in my life, it turned out to be a keen influence and helped shape me into what I am today. Unfortunately he died far also immature but I effort my hardest to remember the many things that he instilled in me.

Setting fences posts was one such task that I got to detect and learn from him. In fact, those that he set at the farm always outlived the need for a fence in that location.

Assumptions you should be enlightened of:

This is valid for locations with clay subsoil and a climate unlike that of the Pacific Northwest with its combination of high water tables and forest devouring soil microbes.

Items Required

Digging fe with a tamping end (example)

Spade shovel

Mail pigsty digger, but I just employ the spade and my easily and omit this tool (example)

Tarp or splayed feedbag- something sturdy enough to hold and dispense the clay yous excavate

Fence Post

Gravel

Extra dirt, the more dirt content, the meliorate

Discarded pigment tin can lid or similar (Run across step 15 for its purpose)

Procedure:

1. Notice a concrete surface and lightly tamp your earthworks iron confronting information technology. Memorize this ringing sound!
2. Remove the turf and topsoil from the site of the mail. Discard- I apply this to embrace exposed limestone rocks in the unimproved roads on the farm.
3. Dig the pigsty putting the displaced globe onto the tarp.
   1. For depth, shoot for 25-30% of the above-ground length of post so 2 feet buried for a 7 human foot post (5 feet exposed).
   2. Add 4 additional inches to this depth. And so for a 7 foot mail to exist cached ii feet, dig a 28 inch deep pigsty
   3. Dig twice the diameter of the post.
4. Pour 4 inches of gravel into the pigsty.
5. Place the postal service in the hole. If working solo, a caryatid may be required to hold information technology upright.
6. Add some other 2 inches of gravel around the base of the mail.
7. Level the post at this point! From here on out, the post isn't going to budge.
8. Add a few inches of the dirt soil by shovelling or pouring from the tarp.
9. Now tamp tamp tamp until the sound resembles that which you memorized in step 1.
10. tamp some more for good measure
11. Echo steps 8-x until tamped clay around postal service is at level with the ground. This takes at least an hour depending on the wet content of the clay and it is vitally important to take your time. No shortcuts!
12. Tamp it real hard for good mensurate
13. Repeat steps 8-x forming a cone of clay 2 or more inches loftier around the base of the post.
14. Tamp this cone until it rings like physical.
15. Adhere a paint tin can lid or similar h2o bulwark to the tiptop of the post

Justification

Starting time of all, I can barely exercise 1 post a day and my artillery are numb from the tamping while my first boss could do iv or 5. But from here on out, the post volition final until the wood degradeshigher up basis.Luckily that is a variable that we control and can stave off with sealants or paints.

Why do gardeners, ecologists and arborist warn against the effects of soil compaction on plants? Compact soil is biologically dead and impervious to h2o. Both attributes prohibit vegetation from becoming established. More chiefly, a lack of microbes, oxygen and water forbid the wood from deteriorating underground! While soil compaction is a bane to the farm in most circumstances, it has its rightful applications. The part of the gravel is insurance providing drainage in the instance that water somehow finds its mode in allowing to to seep deep into the ground. The cone at the base of operations of the mail rising up above basis level should shed all h2o anyhow if compacted enough.

Pictures of the process

Note that I ran out of extra dirt. This volition be rectified once I discover a source of dirt that is non meant for top soil. It will likely come from other projects on the farm that crave calorie-free excavation.

Likewise the damn limestone ledges everywhere on the farm made me have to continue moving my hole after starting to dig it out before I could reach the needed depth! No argue post hole will probable always have to be this big in bore.

Gravel added 4 inches below the mail and 2 inches effectually its base

Getting information technology level with the gravel

Adding dirt little at a time and tamping like crazy! Arms are already like jello at this point

At present they are alarmingly numb, but must push through!

Finally finished. Well about. Need to get more clay to finish the h2o shedding cone which I elected to build on the uphill side of the post with the clay bachelor.

A alarm

This fence mail service is never going to motility. Make sure you lot adequately plan the fencing for this permanence. If information technology has to be removed, brusk of major world moving, information technology volition likely accept to be with a chainsaw leaving a stump like a tree. And that stump probably won't decompose in our lifetime!

One last unrelated note:

I obtained these lightly used argue posts from a farm for $ane.50. Items like debate posts can be had opportunistically for deep discounts. Stock up when presented with a inexpensive opportunity!

I know its strange to mention a way blog dedicated to quality article of clothing in the context of this blog. Even so putthison.com created this extremely accurate depiction of sourcing quality goods:

You can get items of expert quality EITHER quickly OR cheaply just non both.

By the fourth dimension a fence is a loftier and pressing priority, posts are not probable to be inexpensive. And if they are, I doubt they are cedar, mulberry, locust or osage orange which are the absolute all-time woods to be sunk into the ground. But who knows, with this method, yous might be able to get away with a rot-prone wood!

Source: https://thegreenergrassfarm.com/2015/05/08/how-to-set-a-long-lasting-fence-post-without-concrete/

Share this post