New Old School Tool For Decompacting Soil
Over my first year of gardening for other people, one of the biggest internal conflicts I have had is how to balance the need to amend and de-compact urban soils vs minimizing disturbance of the existing soil which has the potential to ruin soil structure and reinvigorate the seed bank (causing previously dormant seeds to germinate and cause weed issues). Tilling ruins the existing soil structure by turning small and medium size soil aggregates into a powder that ultimately is more prone to compaction and has less space for air. Other negatives of tilling include bringing years of weed seeds to the surface and creating a hard pan (more compacted layer) at the deepest depth that the tiller blades reach (tiller blades pushing down on soil at deepest depth they reach). On top of that, a tiller is heavy to work with and move around and expensive to rent Because of this, I have mostly been using a pitchfork to loosen up compacted soil. However, a small pitchfork is incredibly inefficient for de-compacting a whole garden bed.
A few months ago, I came across a tool called a broadfork, which is a popular tool in small scale no till agriculture. It’s basically a wide (20-30”) and deep (10-14”) heavy duty fork. The handles are on the outside which allows you to step on the fork and use your body weight to work it into the soil. You de-compact the soil by rocking it back and forth, creating air pockets underneath the soil and lifting up the soil slightly from below. For aeration, it aerates to a much greater depth than either a tiller or plug aerator (10-14” vs ~6”). Because the soil surface is never broken (outside of fork blade entry holes), it shouldn’t disturb the seed bank enough to create significant weed issues. It’s main negative is that it’s a hand tool, which requires a bit of physical work to use. But the combination of its size (which gives you leverage) and the design’s efficiency in using your body weight make it more efficient than the average hand tool. Plus, if you take the view that an hour in the garden replaces time spent in the gym, the physical labor could be viewed as a good thing.
Broadfork vs Pitchfork
I gave it a test run yesterday in prepping a bed I am going to be planting a seeded micro meadow in. It blew me away how efficient it was. I look forward to using it on future projects to help my customers’ soil. If you are interested in purchasing one for your own use, the tool I purchased was from Treadlite Broadforks. They are a small business with excellent customer service and their products are 100% made in America.
