Heavy Duty Bulb Planter

I've received another item selected whilst sat in the hospital waiting room for 9 hour and thumbing through the Marshalls catalogue repeatedly over and over again. The catalogue first got the scan read slowing down to look at stuff that was interesting when I first arrived at the waiting room, but during that long day I read every word and looked at every picture a number of times to pass the time.

I have a number of different tools for boring holes in the ground especially as I tend to grow through planting membrane to reduce the amount of weeds I have to deal with. 

What I didn't know, and the publication and come to that the web site does not tell you is what the diameter of the bore is and the depth of the bit. It only gives you the overall height of the beast when the plunger is at the bottom of the tool. I've measured added the key dimensions to the photo above for your information. 

Without doubt these tools save you time and even in loose soil you can wiggle the bit around and apply lateral force to the soil enough for the sides to hold up whilst you extract the tool to reveal the bore to plant your bulb, seed potato, sweetcorn plant etc.  

The instructions on the side of the tool says 

• Push the planter into the ground and twist 3 to 4 times. remove and place bulb in the hole, press the plunger to eject the soil back into the hole.

• For ease of soil ejection make sure the soil is well dug prior to planting 

• Black powder coated for longer life   

As you turn and work the tool into the ground the soil inside lifts the plate with the plunger that extends up from the middle of the handle bars, then you can replace or expel the plug of soil by pushing the plunger back down. 

If the soil is too cohesive you may have to turn the tool upside down and apply force to the handle bars to ease the soil out of the tool or in the extreme dig some of the soil out of the end of the tool with a small trowel to reduce the frictional force holding the soil plug in. 

This is standard for all of these types of plunger tools and is why the note about "For ease of ejection make sure the soil is well dug prior to planting" is on the side of the tool. 

The tool is made from powder-coated heavy-duty steel and appears to be of a robust and durable fabrication. It is manufactured in the UK and is branded Worth Gardening by Garland who manufacture a huge range of products that retailers like of Marshalls sell.

At the moment the cost of this tool from Marshalls is £19.99 and here is the Link to the Marshalls Web Page for it. Garland are currently selling the same tool at the RRP £24.99 on their web site.

I don't get any form of commission for providing the links. I do however occasionally receive the odd product to test or new variety of seeds to trial from various suppliers who value my blog and those that follow it. 

UPDATE  14th May 2019 

As a result of my post I was informed by a Marketing Manager at Marshalls that they have added the additional dimensional information to their web page... 

It's nice to know that the blog gets read by suppliers as well as allotment plot holders.