Amy in the Garden

I received the best Christmas gift ever in 2009: a Broadfork.

This tool, originally from Europe but redesigned for Yankees with Yankee ingenuity by the always-worthy Eliot Coleman, is impressive. Its function is to gently lift and aerate the soil. Its handles are made of American hardwood. The tines are weighty, angled, and very sharp. The tool arrives with yellow rubber tips protecting your hands from the razor-sharp edges and the sharp edges of the tines from anything less worthy than soil. I think it is beautiful.

Placed to show off those pretty yellow covers.

Eliot Coleman said, “You can do the same thing with a standard garden fork in smaller bites, but the broadfork is more fun. Like any classic hand tool designed for a specific job, it is a pleasure to use.”

So why this tool?

A new theory of soil, and how to improve it, is basically to STOP trying to improve it. There was a certain righteousness in turning over the garden soil every spring — the longer and harder the work, the better person you were. You were mixing in nutrients, putting air into the soil, preparing a bed for your babies.

The new thought is that Mother Nature is more competent than we give her credit for. The world existed long before gardeners, and did just fine. The worms and bacteria, actually, were doing just fine. The new thinking is that when we spade down deeply, lift and turn, we are bringing weed seeds up to the surface and destroying the tunnels and activity of the worms.

Again from Mr. Coleman: “But if you ever dig an area that has been undisturbed for a few years, and look closely at the soil, you will marvel at the beautiful crumb structure that has resulted from the decomposition of organic matter by microorganisms and the equally beautiful interlacing worm tunnels – nature’s underground handiwork. ‘Wow, what a lovely soil structure! Why destroy this?’ – a question that is hard to answer.”

So I don’t destroy it anymore. The Husband graciously volunteered to be the super-model for you, and show you the Broadfork in action:

Place the tines on the surface of that lovely dark dirt.

Place your foot, and balance yourself.

Step down, pressing the tines in deeply.

“A gardener with a broadfork is doing by hand what large-scale organic farmers do with a winged chisel plow,” says Coleman. So Husband and I are proud, small-scalers that we are, doing with this handtool what others do with a winged chisel plow (despite the greater appeal of the name: winged chisel!)

Put your weight on it, until the tines are buried.

And finally:

Pull back on the handles, rocking the tool in the soil. Can you see that break in the soil just in front of the tool? That's the tines, doing their work.

Last words I’m going to borrow from Eliot Coleman today: “One belief organic vegetable farmers in many parts of the world share is the value of gentle soil-lifting from below without turning. They regard it as a key practice for enhancing long-term soil productivity.”

I love this tool — its simple elegance, its ease of use, its attractiveness, and most of all, its role in making my garden a better place for worms.

That’s my kind of righteousness.

WORDS FROM OTHERS

“It is a valuable lesson: soil disturbance should be to correct the gardener’s faults, not to correct nature.”

— Eliot Coleman, “Four-Season Harvest”