Broadforks

Cleaning, fixing, using, repairing, best and worst of your mechanical aids in the garden...

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Geoff
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it takes the strain off your back when turning the soil


they do make digging a lot easier if the ground is wetter


The reason we started discussing what appears to be a silly implement for the job described is the idea that fork digging in wet ground is easier than spade digging. I don't understand that concept, the work is as hard as the weight of soil you lift with each cycle rather than the tool you use to lift it with (unless you use this fork of course!). I don't know how anybody else digs but I have described my method before so today I've added a couple of photographs. I use a line to mark out 1' trenches (easy for me as I put chalk marks on my concrete paths) and dig a vertical slot along the line. I then dig over at right angles to the line so I can dig as little or as much as the soil and my condition allows. I use an ordinary spade for the vertical and a long handled one for the digging but that's just what I find easiest. Don't tell me my soil is still too wet, needs must!

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Monika
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Hey, Geoff, I thought EVERYBODY digs like this! I have certainly done so all my gardening life. And next to me I always have two (old feeder) buckets, one for perennial weeds, one for large stones, so I can just throw them in as I go along, taking the buckets with me.
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Geoff
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Glad to hear it! I wasn't trying to say I was unique but I have seen people dig along a row throwing forward and I couldn't understand how fork digging could be any easier. I usually weed first but I do stone pick as I dig.
lez
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Hi, I am not talkingh about how to dig but what you use. I dig the ground but do not need to use lines, marks etc. I was looking at those who want to just loosen the soil and have a bad back. from what I can gather the the broadfork makes life easier. From what I have read it's like using one of those back saver spades. I got one brand new 5 years ago and haven't used it yet, no need. I tried to get a photo and link but it didn't work. If interested type broadfork into a google search and see what I was asking about. They sell on amazon and ebay but are expensive and there are different types from what I can see. I was just interested as my mate thinks it's the bees knees.
PLUMPUDDING
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Why not ask your mate to let you use it for an afternoon, then you would know how easy it is to use.
lez
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Hi, Who said I wanted to use one? I thought, though seeing some of the replies, that some might be interested. And not only that I only see him occasionally and he lives over 40 miles away which prompted me to see if any one on here used or heard of them. Still next time I know better. bye
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Pa Snip
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Lez, I am saddened by your last reply. ~The written word is sometimes easy to misconstrue both in meaning and intent and it seems to me that in this case it has been. It certainly reads as if some replies have rattled your cage.

I think everybody who responded did so because they felt their suggestions may assist to a lesser or greater extent.. Sadly, unless I am also misinterpreting your words, you do not appear to have construed it that way. Shame to see people disenchanted in what is a relatively small group of regular posters the vast majority of whom, I find, try to be friendly and helpful

Hope that last "bye" on your post is not finite.

The danger when people start to believe their own publicity is that they often fall off their own ego.

At least travelling under the guise of the Pa Snip Enterprise gives me an excuse for appearing to be on another planet
PLUMPUDDING
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I too thought we were being helpful. It's no good getting mardy if the answers you get aren't the ones you want.

I also looked up Broadfork and the American ones are very big and chunky with two handles and you stand on them to get them in the ground and rock them back and forward to loosen compacted soil. Certainly not a digging tool.
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