Getting the spring beds ready with a broadfork

I had made the commitment to begin to relearn the old methods of gardening. I sold my tiller and bought a broadfork from Gulland Forge last year as a first step.

Tillers do speed up the work, however, the damage they inflict on the soil and problems created later just don't make sense to me.

As a tiller works, a number of detrimental effects occur. The first is that, as it works, it is tearing the weeds and then turning them back into the soil. In effect, you are planting weeds in your garden. A broadfork lifts the dirt and loosens the weeds as they sit for easy removal. Nothing is turned back into the soil.

The second problem a tiller creates is damage to the soil. The rototiller actually kills many of the beneficial organisms the soil contains, the very creatures that we depend on for good crops. Worms are the most obvious victims, however, fungi and microscopic organisms are also destroyed in the process. A rototiller will destroy air pockets in the soil and actually cause unnatural drying. All the creatures God,in His perfect design, need air, moisture, and food to survive in our garden. A tiller damages this ecosystem.

The final problem, that I've mentioned before, is the creation of a hardpan. Imagine the layer of the dirt just below the lowest tine setting on a tiller. As the rototiller turns it's tines, it scrapes that layer again and again. That layer is effectively "polished". It becomes a hard, solid layer that water and roots can't penetrate down, nor beneficial organisms can penetrate up from. The tiller separates the bed from the earth in effect.

Using a broadfork isn't the easiest or quickest method to garden prep. The pictures here show the course of three beds in various stages. The first picture is a fresh from winter bed that I just began to fork. The two beds pictures in the second photo are near finished. They've been forked, weeded, and raked. We are planting peas in one of them tonight.

This picture shows our small rhubarb bed. I used my broadfork in it even with a perennial like rhubarb. It's easy to maneuver around the plant, and they appreciate the aeration of the soil.

Finally, using a braodfork brings lots of good exercise (who doesn't need more of that), and most importantly peace. I love being in the garden, working hard, listening to nature, talking with my wife, or simply praying. It seems like the way God intended it.

I've provided a link to a Gulland Forge video. In the presentation Larry demonstrates spring garden bed prep.

Gulland Forge video