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Welcome! As "Annie in Austin" I blog about gardening in Austin, TX with occasional looks back at our former gardens in Illinois. My husband Philo & I also make videos - some use garden images as background for my original songs, some capture Austin events & sometimes we share videos of birds in our garden. Come talk about gardens, movies, music, genealogy and Austin at the Transplantable Rose and listen to my original songs on YouTube. For an overview read Three Gardens, Twenty Years. Unless noted, these words and photos are my copyrighted work.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Vintage Dibble

Margaret Roach at "A Way to Garden" has posted a fun drawing by Andre illustrating Dibber Envy. I may have quite a few hang-ups but Dibber Envy isn't one of them!


Annieinaustin, vintage dibble

The Dibble, Dibbler, Dibber variations seem to be regional - mine has always been called a Dibble. I've owned this Dibble for decades and it was already old when I saw it lying on a table at a garage sale in the late 1970's. I picked it up and turned to Philo, saying with delight "Look! It's an old Dibble! For planting bulbs!" The seller was so happy to have a gardener call it by name that he practically gave it to me for free.


Although my Dibble was used in well-prepared beds in Illinois, it hasn't been much use in Texas so far. We've been in this house for four years - will our efforts at cultivation, our additions of many composts and granite, our layers of mulch ever make the soil good enough so that our Dibble comes out of retirement to plant bulbs once again?

10 comments:

Carol Michel said...

Seeing that Dibble has given me a very serious case of Dibble-Envy. Oh, that is a fine looking gardening tool!

Carol, May Dreams Gardens

Entangled said...

That's a beauty of a dibble (and that's what I always called it). When I used to visit antique malls I was looking for depression glass - should have been looking for garden tools...

Lori said...

I've never heard of a dibble in my life, but just looking at it I can tell it's a far more effective tool than the crappy-ass bulb planter thingee I got at a big box store.

Also, all this talk on Twitter about the T-Dibble has me waiting for the rapper. And his hoes. ;P

chuck b. said...

Interesting, but if it's so great why do they sell other stuff now, and how come I've never heard of it?  :)    It looks like a good tool for my garden where planting bulbs has become difficult because everything is so congested.  My garden has congestion problems.

I thoroughly enjoyed clicking through every single page of the Austin Reptile Service website linked on the Transplantable Rose. 

Annie in Austin said...

Oh Chuck - thanks for the late-night chuck-le. The dibble is really a glorified, pointed stick and only works in ground that's pretty good, meaning it got more use in Illinois.

Glad you liked the reptiles! I make link lists so I can find the sites again, and wondered whether other people ever look at them.

Annie

Kay Hardy Campbell said...

Annie --- Is your Philo the Philo that used to live in Dhahran? My husband Gary and I knew a young man by that name (PD) decades ago. Also, my husband makes and sells garden dibbles on his www.rusticworkbench.com He was doing a google search on 'dibble' and found your blog and when you mention Philo, well, we had to ask!

Annie in Austin said...

It's fun to know your husband is still making dibbles, KHC, but Philo is my husband's blog/pen/YouTube name - and it actually refers to Philo T Farnsworth!

Thanks for commenting,

Annie

Mrs. Kelley Dibble said...

I googled "antique dibble" and your site popped up. My married name (for 29 years now) is Dibble and I would love to own an antique dibble! So after reading your blog for the next several minutes, I'll be back on google because I'm in the market to buy one! There's -0- chance that yours is for sale. Haha! You got a beauty for sure!

Mrs. Kelley Dibble said...

To KHC: I would have e-mailed you but there's no ace to click e-mail on your profile. I just ordered one your hubby's dibbles.

Signed,
Mrs. Dibble
http://kelleyhighway.blogspot.com/

Kay Hardy Campbell said...

Mrs. Dibble - Thanks for the order, we hope you enjoy the dibble. I love your blog!
KHC (kaycam@aol.com)