Wooden Garden Dibber

This wooden hand dibber is used for making holes in the ground that you can simply drop your seedlings into, without having to dig a hole using a trowel. I wanted to make this as simple as possible, but also make it strong and durable to last a long time and stand up to heavy use.

- 1 block of wood for the handle 20cm long 3cm wide and 3cm thick this will be the handle
- 1 block of wood for the shaft 20cm long 5cm wide and 3cm thick this will be the shaft (I used ash wood for this)
- Tape measure
- Hand saw
- Pencil
- Large Wood File
- Electric drill
- 6mm wood bit
- 6mm wood dowel 10cm long (I used ash)
- Clamps
- Hammer- Chisel
- Marker pen

In order to make it as durable as possible, it will be necessary to make a mortise and tenon joint and we will peg it later with a dowels. We will start by cutting a 1cm thick tenon that will be 2cm deep this can be marked on the shaft. At the top side of the shaft measure 2cm down and make a mark, then on the end of the shaft measure 1cm in and make another mark, join these up around the piece of wood. This is then copied on to the other side and with that it should look like the photo.

Next cut down into the wood across the wide surface you should be cutting across the grain this will make it far easier to chip out with a hammer and chisel. Once you have that cut, put the chisel on the end of the piece of wood in line with the 1cm mark that you drew earlier. As the grain is in that direction you should be able to tap the chisel with the hammer and a block of wood should pop off. keep doing this till all of the material that was marked is gone. It should look like the photo with a 1cm piece of wood sticking out from the shaft.

That is your tenon done!

Next would be to cut the mortise, this will be done in the handle piece. In order to do this we first need to know where to cut the mortise, this can be done by marking the center point on the tenon and the center of the handle when put together this should look like a "T" shape, so the tenon that you just cut out goes into the long side of the handle.

Place the shaft on top of the handle making sure that the two marks align you can then draw around the tenon this will show you where to cut the mortise. With that done you can then remove the material from the mortise this is done first by drilling down into it. Make sure not to go outside of the lines it should look like the photo, try to go about 2.5cm deep with the drill. This way the tenon wont hit the bottom and you will still have enough material to not accidentally come out of the top.

You can then use a chisel to start getting the rest of the material out. Make sure that you stay just to the inside of the line as you drew around the tenon, the marking is actually slightly to large. Start by using the chisel to cut down into the side of the mortise then the top and bottom, you can then scoop the center out with the chisel and it should come away easily. Put your tenon into the mortise you may have to take it out and clear away more material on the inside of the mortise to get it to sit properly. Once that is done you should be able to slide it in and get the "T" shape, the tighter the fit the better.

Dibbers have to be tapered in order to allow for ease of pushing into the soil. This will depend on your soil if you have sandy soil you could make a wider taper if you have clay soil you will want it to be more tapered and sharp. My soil is a bit of both with thick clay in some places and loamy in others so ive added two tapers one for roughly the size of a small plant cell and one to initially break the soil.

The first cut was done by finding the center of the shaft and marking 1cm on each side from that center, you can then mark from those 1cm lines up to the top of the shaft and cut them out this will give you a pointed shaft with a large end. This could be suitable for sandy soil or compost. To add the second taper I marked again this time staring in this middle and going 3cm up and out to the ends, this gives a nice point that can pierce the ground easily.

Once this is done the edges will be rough and need to be made smooth, especially the handle as this will be used often. To do this fix the handle to a solid surface with clamps (i used my workbench). Get a large wood file and start rounding the edges off this will make it more smooth and soft on the hand, do the same with the shaft. You should now have something easy to hold with a pointy end good for making holes in the ground.

To fix the shaft and the handle in place this can be done by pegging the joint. To do this you will have to drill through the handle and the shaft at the same time. Make a mark from either side of the shaft 1cm in and 1cm up from the edge of the handle. Drill on the marks all the way through this will go through the mortise and tenon.

Now that you have the holes you can hammer a dowel through this will lock the joint in place. Start by cutting the dowels to length about 5cm long should be fine. Get a hammer, align the dowel with the hole and drive the dowel through, till it comes out the other side do the same with the other hole. Your dibber should now be fixed completely in place and hold no matter how much force you put through it.

Cut the dowel off that was sticking out with a saw and now you have the main body of the dibber completed.

To finish the dibber off I used a marker pen and measured 5cm intervals to mark the depth. Now your dibber is complete and you can start using it to plant up your seedlings.

Reflections: I'd like to take a moment to go back over and see what other ways this could have been done, to discuss some other methods that could have been used.
The wood I used was ash, i had a lot of it hanging around. I would tend to use a hardwood so it can handle the force of being pushed into the ground, you probably could use softwood although i don't think it would last as long.
The mortise and tenon, this could most likely be changed you could screw in from the top of the handle through and into the shaft this would fix the two parts together, however i would be more concerned with strength and would think unless you are using very large screws it would buckle after some time. I tend to try and not use metal fixings in my projects so this is what im most comfortable with. You could also use a dowel joint these tend to be easier and with glue it would probably be close to the strength of this joint.
The dowels, you can use dowels of most sizes, given the size of the tenon though i would say make it smaller than 1cm. If you are going to do this sit it lower down on the handle leaving enough wood at the top of the tenon to hold it in.
The shape of the shaft as mentioned previously, can of course be changed to suit your soil type. After using this a couple of times around the garden, i can say it works well on loamy soil however needs a good push to get through the clay soil. Maybe it the future i will make one with a taper from the top down into one point making it easier to push into the clay soil.

Thank you for taking the time to read this instructable I hope you enjoyed it and had fun making your own garden dibber!