building a dig garden

[captbo]

or a test garden. I am into my third detector an AT pro and its high time I built said back yard retreat,, Please offer suggestions and tips.. All the best Bo

 

[cudamark]

I had one at my previous home many years ago. It helped compare detectors on a given target after the buried targets "seasoned" a bit. I helped it along by adding some fertilizer to help the targets dissolve slightly to mimic the halo effect of targets buried for years. A fresh test garden is not much better than an air test. You need to bury targets at least 2 feet apart and at various depths for it to be meaningful. Even once it's established, it might not represent your actual hunting conditions elsewhere. All soils are different and other targets close by will effect your results. I found the test garden to be the most help when I got a new detector and wanted to see what things sounded like before I hit the search area. It also helped when playing with the controls to get the best signal for a particular item.