Project book · an hour or two

Plant a tree

Dig wide, not deep. The rest is watering for a year.

How many trees?

trees

This fits in a car

About 285 lb of materials. Comfortably inside what a car carries (200 lb), so any shopper can take it.

Before you start

Call 811 before you dig — a tree hole is deep enough to hit a buried line. It is free and takes a couple of days. A 15 gallon tree is well over 100 lb, so move it with two people or a dolly.

What to buy — untick anything you have

Plants

1 Tree, 15 gallon containerStraight trunk, no torn bark, and roots not bursting out of the pot. A tree taller than a car roof needs a pickup — ask the garden center to help load it.

Soil

2 bags of garden soil for trees and shrubs, 1.5 cu ft
4 bags of mulch, 2 cu ft

Hardware

1 Tree staking kit

Tools — already ticked off, since most people have them

Tools

1 Round-point shovel· most people have this
1 Utility knife· most people have this
1 Wheelbarrow· most people have this
1 Garden hose· most people have this

It lands in the shopping form, where you can edit anything and say what you think each thing costs. Nothing is ordered until you send it.

How it goes · about an hour or two · beginner

Pick a spot well clear of the house and any overhead lines, allowing for how wide the tree will be in twenty years.
Dig a hole two to three times as wide as the pot and exactly as deep as the root ball.
Cut the pot away, tease out any circling roots, and set the tree so the flare at the base of the trunk sits just above the ground.
Backfill with the dug soil mixed with the bagged soil, firming it as you go, and water it in halfway through.
Stake it loosely only if it leans in the wind, and take the stakes off after a year.
Mulch a wide ring three inches deep, pulled back from the trunk, and water deeply once a week through the first two summers.

Something else

Build a raised garden bed Mulch a flower bed Paint a room Put up garage shelving Fix a patchy lawn Build a fire pit Mount a TV on the wall Cookout for a crowd

Feeding people instead? The recipe book works the same way — pick a meal, say how many, every ingredient lands on the list.