Saving you money, not hurting your back, that’s also what you’re looking for when you work the soil in your garden, right? In any case, ergonomics and ease of use are subjects to be discussed when talking about a digging fork. The garden fork is a useful tool. It’s an instrument you can use to turn over and move dirt. The garden fork can also be used to move plants. Is it really worth investing in such a tool? What is the function of a garden fork? What should you pay attention to when buying? This is the subject of this article.
Why is tillage so important?
Cultivating, aerating and loosening the soil is very important for supplying plants with nutrients and water, as this is how you optimally prepare for their uptake. If you also want to improve the soil and mix potting soil, fertilizer or compost into the soil, a garden fork can come in handy. Because for this task it is enough to work a maximum of twenty to thirty centimeters below the surface of the ground. Due to the long fork tines, you will save yourself much more time-consuming and laborious work than with a shovel.
It is especially in the spring when the frost period ends that it can be relevant to refresh the dry and nutrient-poor soil and enrich it with the ingredients it needs. Working with a garden fork allows moisture and air to penetrate under the compacted soil, giving you well-nourished roots and healthier plants. This is why many garden owners use the garden fork as an appropriate gardening tool at this time of year. It is at this time of year that the best possible conditions should be created for seedlings, seedlings and new flowers. But the garden fork can also be used at all other times of the year when it is also a question of creating excellent growing conditions for plants or eliminating unwanted weeds.
What is a garden fork?
A digging fork is a multi-tine tool that is used to loosen and turn soil. The digging fork has 2, 3 or 4 wide, spear-shaped tines, about 30 cm long, made of hardened steel, which are arranged on the same plane, at the lower end, depending on the use planned. The tines and handle support are made from one piece. The digging fork usually has a handle with a T- or D-grip. Like the spade, the digging fork is used to dig and loosen the soil, especially where the ground is stony or sticky and working with the spade is difficult, or even impossible.
A digging fork – also known as a spade fork or digging fork – can be used both to dig and loosen the soil and to gently dig up plants to be moved around the garden. A garden fork is essential, especially when harvesting potatoes. The spade fork basically looks like a spade and can be used in exactly the same way, but instead of a smooth, continuous cutting blade, it has several mostly flattened teeth, giving it the appearance of a spade. an oversized fork.
Why invest in a garden fork?
When you dig the earth with a spading fork, the spading fork tines protect both the roots, which should not be damaged, and beneficial animals such as earthworms, which often get cut into pieces. two when using a conventional spade. Even mature potatoes can be lifted relatively gently from the ground using a garden fork. A spading fork is also particularly useful for digging in very rocky ground, where a spade would constantly encounter resistance, or for digging in particularly hard ground.
If you buy yourself a digging fork, prefer a sturdy wooden handle, why not lacquered and polished. Make sure the tool teeth are made of high quality and stable stainless steel. Regarding its length, you can adapt it: the forks are available in different sizes. There are mini-forks for small surfaces which fulfill the same purpose but which, due to their size, are much more manageable. Practical for small flower beds, they are light in weight. Also ideal for children who want to help in the garden.
The digging fork rather than the shovel
With a garden fork you work to loosen the surface of the soil, you work in fresh soil or you pull out a few weeds. If you only want to turn the top layers of soil, you will be able to do this job with relatively little effort. The deeper you want to work the soil, the greater the effort required. The use in this case of a digging fork takes on its full meaning.