Can any one recommend a post hole digger that is good for Brooklyn soil? By Brooklyn soil I mean soil that is equal parts dirt and crap.
And by crap I mean broken glass, tin cans, bent spoons, rubber tires, chunks of concrete, dead birds in Mason jars (not kidding) left over sheetrock that some CG burried in the back yard because it was cheaper than having it hauled away....etc.
Yup. I call 'em employees. They work great for any of those really ugly jobs.
Since I work for a municipality we call them students
When you get into that kind of crap you usually just end up using a pick, bar and digging it out by hand
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Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Beer in one hand - Nacho's in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming : Woo Hoo, what a ride!
Maybe they used to work when hand-tools lasted decades, but the one I own hangs on the wall after breaking my knuckles : while not digging a post-hole...
...part of my extensive collection of useless garden tools.
Thanks to all for the advice.
Since the yard is behind a rowhouse the only way to get to the yard is through the house which, unfortunately, means a skidsteer is not an option.
We wound up using a post hole digger, a pick and, like Dan said, digging it out by hand.
I once did a 3 yard mulch job where the ONLY access was either....
A) Walk about 300 yards froma parking lot - through a pool area up a 2' retaining wall and than up a hill and then over a 12 foot high fence or .....
b)through a house down some stairs and out a sliding glass door. All the carpet was white also.
The way I did it was through the house with nice clean bags of mulch and a guy at the front door, two guys inside, and a guy at the back door. We used rubber mulch so that we wouldn't have to do it again too soon. The labor was so high that the extra cost of rubber was well justified.
A lot of the work I do is brownstone backyards so the only access is through the house. It does increase labor costs quite a bit - and materials costs since I can't buy anything in bulk. But I explain that to clients and for the most part they understand.
I think everyone in NYC is so used to paying more for everything that it doesn't really faze them.
And I do find that papering the floors and putting corrugated cardboard along the walls goes a long way toward protecting the floors and walls and making people feel like we care (which we do) about not wrecking their homes.
: while not digging a post-hole... 
