Loosening Soil with a Digging Fork

With foot-long tines, a digging fork or broadfork is able to loosen the soil 12-to-14-inches deep, providing the next-best method to double digging with only a moderate amount of work. (Tillers, by contrast, with six-inch tines, only loosen the soil six-to-eight inches deep, leaving a much harder layer just below this depth that can develop into a hardpan if too much compaction and only tilling takes place.) A spade can also be used. In fact, this method is often called “spading.” However, a digging fork (or broadfork) makes it easier and is irreplaceable for the final twisting and pulling motion of loosening. 

The Method

First, clear the areas you intend as beds of weeds, using a digging fork to pry them up as needed. If sod is present, remove it or smother it far enough in advance that it sufficiently degrades into the soil. If you have enough lead time, you have more options for the latter. For more information, see our post on dealing with sod.

Second, moderately loosen the soil in all of the beds about a foot deep with a digging fork. This is the first of what will be two loosening sessions, the second creating an especially loose and fluffy soil. One could wait to do this initial loosening until after adding the compost (see below), but doing some initial loosening tends to make the final loosening and mixing much easier and is worth the relatively small initial effort.

Step the digging fork’s tines entirely into the soil and pull back on the handle, lifting the soil slightly. Remove the fork and repeat this process a few inches behind, in front of, or adjacent to the previous spot—getting into a rhythm: step, pull, step, pull, step pull—until you have an area big enough that you feel it’s ready for the next step. There will still be fist-sized or bigger clumps and clods at this point, but don’t worry about them. They’ll break up soon enough. If your soil is especially heavy or compacted, you’ll typically need to repeat this process with the tines perpendicular to your first pattern before the next step.

Once you’ve adequately “pulled up” a sufficient area of soil (typically just the soil close at hand, but some may want it to be the whole bed), further loosen it by simply stabbing the soil and moving the tines in all directions. It’s during this step in the process that you’ll notice how dramatically the soil is loosening, breaking up almost all larger clumps and clods and visibly fluffing up.

Do this over the entire area.

Third, add a two-inch or more layer of cured compost to the top of each bed.

Fourth, loosen the soil even further, naturally mixing the compost with the soil as you do so. At first, use the same perpendicular and tine-rocking methods from step three, but you’ll be able to cover more ground with each insertion and pull or rock of the tines since the soil is already relatively loose. Then, move on to a final loosening and fine mixing of the compost and soil by plunging the fork fully into the ground and twisting the tines while raising them. This thoroughly loosens the soil and mixes in the compost, and you’ll quickly feel and see both.

You can test your soil’s looseness along the way by merely dropping the fork into the soil from waist or shoulder height. If it completely buries the tines, it’s almost as loose as you’ll be able to get it. If you really do it well, soil can be made incredibly loose and “fluffy” with this final twisting mixing, competing with the texture of tilled soil but loosened to a much greater depth.

Repeat these steps for all the soil in the bed.

Finally, shape the bed with a bow rake as needed to make the sides gently sloping to minimize erosion and make planting easier.

Other Uses

Versions of this method are also great for adding amendments to to the soil or quickly loosening a small area of soil for an individual planting. Especially with soil that has already been improved somewhat, you can quickly work over an area, mixing in compost, blood or bone meal, or other amendments to whatever depth you prefer.

Next, we’ll turn to an even easier method.