When You Can't Find the Right Tool — Make One.

 There are certain things in life that drive me absolutely up the wall. Not big things. Not life and death stuff. I mean the small, niggly, persistent things that sit at the back of your mind for years and just quietly irritate you every single time they come up. And for me — for a very, very long time — one of those things was potting on tools.

You'll know the ones I mean. Or maybe you won't, which rather proves my point. Those little dibbers and plug tools you find in garden centres. The ones that look like they were designed by someone who has never actually knelt down on a cold allotment and tried to get a hundred leek seedlings out of individual cells without wrecking their roots and losing the will to live. Too fat, too thin, wrong shape, wrong length, horrible plastic handle that makes your hand ache after twenty minutes. I've tried them all over the years and I have never — not once — found one that does exactly what I want it to do.

So the only thing to do is make one or two.

The Lathe Gets Involved

Now, I've had my lathe for a fair while and it has been responsible for some wonderful things over the years. Handles, components, bits and bobs for the workshop. But I have to say — making these planting tools might just be one of my favourite things I've ever turned on it. It sounds daft, doesn't it? A grown man getting genuinely excited about a dibber. But here's the thing — when something is made exactly right, exactly to your own specification, there is a satisfaction to using it that you simply cannot get from something off a shop shelf.

I made two of them.

The first one is my main dibber. Nice taper on it, smooth finish, good weight in the hand, the right length so you're not hunching over. This one I use for popping single plants into trays or pots — one dib, one plant, move along. Simple. Clean. Quick.

The second one I shaped differently. This one I turned into a plug tool — shaped specifically to match the plugs, so when you push it in and lift it out it gives you the perfect hole for the plug your planting.  And this, I will tell you now, has absolutely transformed the process. I used to spend far too long fiddling about trying to prise plugs out without damaging them. Now? I go along the tray like a machine. Iris had a go with it the other week and even she had to admit it was rather good — and at her age she's not always quick to hand out compliments on my workshop inventions, I can tell you. i have a bigger one at the allotments for putting brassicas in.

Both tools are wood. Both are made to fit my hands, my way of working, my plots. And they cost me nothing but a bit of time and a good afternoon in the workshop, which frankly is never wasted time as far as I'm concerned.

Pre-germination — The Cheat That Isn't Cheating

While I've been in the workshop making tools, I've also been doing something up at the heated bench that I swear by and have done for years. Pre-germination. Or as Sam once called it — cheating. He's wrong, by the way.

The idea is simple. Some seeds — your bigger ones especially — really respond well to being given a little head start before they ever see a pot of compost. Sweet corn, bush beans, pumpkins — these are the ones I do this with every year without fail. What I do is line an old margarine tub with a couple of sheets of kitchen roll, dampen it — not soaking, just nicely moist — pop the seeds in, put the lid on, and slide the whole thing onto the heated bench.

That's it. That is genuinely it.

Forty-eight hours later — in most cases, sometimes less — you open that lid and there they are. Little white rootlets already showing, ready to go. They're off. They've already made their decision. They've decided life is worth living and they want to get on with it. All I have to do then is pot them up carefully into a good mix of compost and they take off like there's no tomorrow.

This week I've had sweet corn, bush beans and pumpkins all doing their thing in their little margarine pot spa retreats on the heated bench. Within two days they were all showing and into pots they went. No fuss. No hanging about for two weeks wondering if anything is happening. Just — pop, check, pot, job done.

It genuinely is one of those methods where once you've tried it you wonder why you ever did it any other way.

The Heated Bench — Worth Every Penny

I know some folks are a bit cautious about the heated bench and whether it's worth the investment. I would say — yes. Categorically. Especially at this time of year when you want things moving quickly and the ambient temperature in the greenhouse is still not quite reliable enough to rely on. The heated bench gives you control. It brings your germination times right down and it lets you get on with the season properly rather than just hoping for the best.

Mine has been running since late winter and it has barely had an idle moment.