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An old timer in Cheyenne showed me how he set posts with a shovel and a hose, and I still think about it
About 15 years back I was helping on a 200 foot cedar privacy run outside Cheyenne and this guy named Roy, who was pushing 70, dug every hole by hand with a spade instead of using the auger because the ground was full of rock and caliche. He told me 'the auger lies to you, it makes a pretty hole but the dirt you pull out never goes back the same,' and then he watered each post in with a hose for a slow soak instead of a fast dump. Anybody else got a trick from an old timer that sounded crazy at the time but turned out to be right?
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paulnguyen20h ago
That line about the auger lying to you is real, because all that fluffed up dirt never packs back down the same and your post ends up loose in a year. Watering it in slow like Roy did lets the soil settle around the post instead of leaving air pockets, so it basically sets itself.
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finley_smith20h ago
Water settling the dirt is only half the story though. When you dig a hole with an auger the sides get glazed and packed smooth from the spinning, so that smooth wall keeps water and roots from moving through it the way they should. Roy's slow watering helps the backfill settle, sure, but it doesn't fix that glazed wall, which is the part that actually causes the post to work loose. What you really want is to rough up the sides of the hole with a digging bar or a shovel before you drop the post in, so the new dirt can knit into the old dirt around it. Otherwise you've basically got a post sitting in a smooth cup, and even packed tight it can slide once things get wet and freeze. So yeah, water it in, but scratch up them walls first or you're just doing half the job.
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