Digging Post Holes without Destroying Yourself.

[csziggy]

10. We have one as an attachment for our tractor

It works good in decent soil. In dry red clay, or red clay just damp enough to stick together good, it's useless.

One dry year we needed to run a new fence line so we took the tractor out with the borer on it. Generally I drove the tractor while my husband guided me and monitored the auger. The first hole, I dropped the auger, revved up the tractor and tried to bore out the hole. All it did was make a polished divot in the bone dry clay.

So my husband decided it needed some extra weight to bite in and he climbed on top of the auger. Now, he weighed about 250 so we both expected it to make a difference. The divot got shinier. I set the brakes on the tractor and climbed up on the auger, too - I won't discuss my weight but it added to the pressure. Nothing, but a really shiny divot in the clay.

We gave up and dragged a soaker hose along the line for the new fence and left it going for two weeks. That and a couple of showers moistened the ground enough we could get the holes dug, but it was still a battle.