Fork it!

And now, a short station break to pay homage to my favorite gardening tool.

 

The fork.

I was introduced to this fabulous piece of garden equipment during a meditation class at Esalen.

My dream garden.

During the class, we did some meditative gardening. I was assigned to harvest green onions with a partner, but we were a little too enthusiastic and efficient. (The next day, we ate green onions at every meal.) So, they set us to turn under a bed of tired kale, and I spent a half-hour in peaceful contemplation of the fork.

It was a revelation.

As a bed-turning tool, the fork is infinitely superior to the shovel. It mixes while it turns and it's a lot easier on the back. 

At the Beet Ranch, our native soil would give a potter fits of delight. It's all clay with a rock thrown in here and there for variety. When we dug holes for our trees, we started with a pick axe, and progressed to a jack hammer. 

I've mixed a fair amount of compost into our beds, but the clay persists. A shovel is hard to drive through clay. I've ripped the bottom out of more than one pair of garden shoes doing the shovel-stomp. Plus, the shovel compacts as it cuts, bringing the soil up in hard shovel-shaped bricks. I've halved a lot of earthworms hacking up shovel pucks. 

The fork, on the other hand, dives easily through clay, and mixes without compacting. 

But is it really that beneficial to turn over soil in planting beds? 

I was feeling a little lazy last month, so I did a little at-home experiment. I forked over half a bed, left the other half un-forked. I sowed buckwheat equally over all and sprinkled a small layer of compost over the top.

Forked (left) v/s unforked (right)

The results, as you can see, were significant.

The buckwheat on the unturned side did sprout eventually, but never as thickly as the buckwheat on the forked side.

My verdict: forking - worth the extra effort.