Building a Test Garden

Hi Guys,

I have been detecting for ten years and have not put in a test garden as yet so I figure I am way overdue.
Do any of you have any advice on target selection and depth, and seperation of trash to good targets for the hazard portion?
I was figuring to use clad and silver coins, a couple of rings, (gold and silver), and some common trash items, (various tabs, rusty bottlecaps, rusty nails etc. Interested in what others have selected and how they organized their plot.

Cheers,

Drew.

Drew,

If you have a chance, I cover this in the DVD.....and quite thoroughly. It is also covered in this forum........somewhere.
I recommend dimes and nickels. I recommend alum soda tabs and rusty nails for the trash items.

I've been adding to it and modifying it for close to 15 years bow (the same amount of time I've lived here). My advice (for what its worth) is to try to make YOUR garden as much like your hunting conditions as possible. That includes the type of targets. I have a plethora of coin type targets at various depths...... and things like CW artillery fragments, small two piece cuff buttons..... regular coat buttons... ball buttons...flat buttons.....shotgun shell casings.....minnie balls....etc etc. I also have a number of targets with co-located iron targets at varying distances. Some with iron UNDER the target too..but none with iron directly over the target (an excercise in futility!) I even have a mangled CW breast plate buried at a solid 14 inches.
the trick is to use targets your prone to dig where you hunt, in the setting you like to hunt in. I hunt in sites where I deal with a lot of iron in various forms, so co-located iron plays a big part in my garden.
Also....keep good records of how and WHEN targets are planted. you'll find that as the years pass.....some targets will become more "detectable".
I mark my targets with 6" long plastic spikes you can get a Home depot. they last far longer than Golf tees will, and can be seen easily with a dab of paint on the top. You can even color-code your targets, to make it easier to keep track of things when you start to get a few in the ground. Be SURE to clean the site throughly before setting it up though. one little piece of undetected metal WILL affect your tests. I clean my sites with a VLF machine run wide open in AM....and then hit it with my infinium just to be sure. Have fun!! Streak!

Good point Tom,

I will watch my copy again and make some notes.

Streak! Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've been adding to it and modifying it for close
> to 15 years bow (the same amount of time I've
> lived here). My advice (for what its worth) is to
> try to make YOUR garden as much like your hunting
> conditions as possible. That includes the type of
> targets. I have a plethora of coin type targets at
> various depths...... and things like CW artillery
> fragments, small two piece cuff buttons.....
> regular coat buttons... ball buttons...flat
> buttons.....shotgun shell casings.....minnie
> balls....etc etc. I also have a number of targets
> with co-located iron targets at varying distances.
> Some with iron UNDER the target too..but none with
> iron directly over the target (an excercise in
> futility!) I even have a mangled CW breast plate
> buried at a solid 14 inches.
> the trick is to use targets your prone to dig
> where you hunt, in the setting you like to hunt
> in. I hunt in sites where I deal with a lot of
> iron in various forms, so co-located iron plays a
> big part in my garden.
> Also....keep good records of how and WHEN targets
> are planted. you'll find that as the years
> pass.....some targets will become more
> "detectable".
> I mark my targets with 6" long plastic spikes you
> can get a Home depot. they last far longer than
> Golf tees will, and can be seen easily with a dab
> of paint on the top. You can even color-code your
> targets, to make it easier to keep track of things
> when you start to get a few in the ground. Be SURE
> to clean the site throughly before setting it up
> though. one little piece of undetected metal WILL
> affect your tests. I clean my sites with a VLF
> machine run wide open in AM....and then hit it
> with my infinium just to be sure. Have fun!!
> Streak!

Hi Streak,

What a great post! That is exactly the kind of detail I was looking for!
I like to collect information and come up with a solid plan before I start a project. I like the plastic stake markers and the log book of what and when was planted. Since I don't have a PI unit yet I will go over the plot with a few different units wide open and in AM mode to clean it up as best I can.

Thanks again!

Drew.

A couple of additional thoughts to share:

* Use a rare Earth magnet to completely sanatize ..... at minimum...... one cubic foot of soil that a test target will be buried within. This will remove all of the iron flecks/flakes.

* THEN...... if possible...... use a Gold Bug-II (borrow one if you can)...... to sanatize that SAME cubic foot of dirt ..... of all non-ferrous items.

CLEAN dirt is critical.

I buried targets in my back yard in 1999. I detected the site in AM, removed any targets, then made the test bed an easy way. I made it between 2 inline trees using PVC pipe as depth guides.

Allow me to explain. For example, I took a piece of PVC, cut it 5" long & taped a quarter to the bottom of it. I only used enough tape to hold the coin in place. Then, I took a piece of metal pipe the width of the PVC, drove it into the ground the exact 5" depth & simply drop the targeted ( taped ) PVC in the ground. No digging required. The tops of the PVC are visible, yet natural elements has seeped into the PVC creating a natural setting. I did the same for all the other targets you see in the picture below.

Below is the "map" of the test bed enclosed within plexiglass for easy viewing:



I've buried newer targets at shallow depths ( 2" ), just like most newer targets are nowadays & others at 5" & 3". I buried bricks painted white flush with the ground to separate the various target depths. I Simply walk 2 paces from a tree & look for the 1st brick. I have fun with others trying this bed, I ask if they would dig or not. You would be surprised at the responses I get.

Anyway....The CZ3D screams at those that are 5" & using the AM pinpoint tells me thay are keepers.

Good luck with whatever test bed you set up...........see ya yardhunter

You might want to bury a silver dime at 6", 7" and 8" to see how changes affect the response of your detector at depth. In my red clay soil of SC, I can only barely see the 8" dime using my F75 and Explorer II with high sensitivities. When conditions are very dry, the dime is lost until the ground gets wet again.

I hope the story i read was not one of you people. A tector wrote he had a
10 year old test garden and the new guy down the street asked if he could
try his new machine on it . He said go for it as he worked in the garage.
Well a hour later the new guy goes in the garage and put a pile of coins on
the table and said i think i got them all. A little MAD OH YEA .HH Mike

Excellent Ideas! It really helps to have a number of examples in the planning phase. I am thinking that I may build a double test garden with desirable targets in clean soil at a variety of depths from shallow to wishful, and a separate hazard garden with different masking scenarios, and target separation.
I think a well thought out test garden can be a virtual laboratory.
You guys have me stoked with this projet, thanks a lot for the input.
Greatr forum Tom!

HH,

Drew.

I learn a lot about the machines by playing around with them in the garden.

I apologize fellows, I've actually added 2 targets at 8" in this bed. I posted an old picture. The 2 newer targets were buried about 2 years ago.
Here's the correct picture of the test bed map:



I added the 2 targets using the PVC as mentioned in the previous post.
You can see it barely to the right of the middle bricks.
Thanks.........see ya mark

Build a complex (nails & coin) target and you'll be ready to go! I seem to spend most of my time on my two complex targets vs. my cleanly buried silver.

I'm proud of this entire thread. It is the "meat". The criticality of a test-garden is paramount. I will NOT graduate a new detector into the real-world......... until it passes (and I have learned) it's handling abilities/characteristics in a complex test-garden. This is to say; If a new unit does not pass certain tests, I will never bring it into the real world.