Is Using a Broadfork to Build Soil Worth It? (OR IS IT A WASTE OF TIME?)

Steven Cornett @naturesalwaysright talks why he likes the broadfork as a soil building tool. Follow Steven:

[Mikha]

Thankyou Diego and thankyou Stephen for all your sharing.

[scottstewart]

broadforking is good for clearing rocks on new land, i recommend turning the soil completely over and pull out the big rocks a few months before planting. then use it to aerate in successive planting seasons. broadforks reach deeper than tillers for turning over soil

[jefferyhammond]

Don't bother with Treadlite.
I ordered one in October 2021. I waited over A QUARTER OF A YEAR for this thing! What really upset me was that they kept pushing it back just a couple of weeks, a couple more weeks, a couple more weeks again and again, you get the point. I was never warned it would take so long to ship or even warned that they were on back order. I gave up waiting and got my money refunded. Order in march and you might have it by Christmas! Ridiculous.

[zacmcclendon]

This tool has been such a god send. Meadowcreature medium since Nov 2018.

I own and am sole employee of a small landscaping company with a focus on sustainability and client engagement and education in South Carolina.

For planting containerized plants, the broadfork makes easy work of getting a large enough planting hole, especially for root filled soils. On a residential scale and for landscape reno work, tilling just doesn’t make sense.

It just makes almost every job from hand cutting edges to planting bulbs feasible and efficient for one person

[droptozro]

Thanks for doing this short clip. I've been wondering about this as I've seen broadforking clips on the rise and wanted a longer term explanation. Some were doing it for chicken tilling too(Justin Rhodes)... which we have chickens so it was also a temptation.
We have been completely no-till in the past, but plan on moving to top 1-2 inch hand tool tilling this year as we try to grow more and go to market with a seeder. But much of our soil is rough and clay, so it's taken a while to build up on top of this over the last 3 years and this type of initial broadforking only to help give the soil some aeration and compost to get the activity going faster may help. Double-digging I tried one year and that was backbreaking work for such a small 8x4 bed... don't want to do that again. Broadforking looks faster even if it's still a workout.

[NS-pfzc]

Great perspective. I wonder...we have a lot of gneiss rock 2-6 inches down, pretty much everywhere. Are the tines of the broadfork sturdy enough to handle the leverage against those? I've bent so many cheaper digging forks.

[opencoop]

Fantastic points! After seeking Charles Dowding's video showing broadforking to be worse on his veggies than straight no-dig, I questioned my use of the broadfork. Like you said here, it's a tool to use when you need it and not something to use when you don't... guess common sense prevails ;-)

[browntownorganics]

Steve could have his neighbors soil tested to see what his soil was when he started

[mathgasm]

I ordered a meadow creature and the ups man cried.

[Junkinsally]

Nothing beats plowing and tilling, period. I’ve tried the the “no till” method and got pathetic results. Going back to what works.

[jasoncrowell]

If YOU dont fork, your carrots will...