How to Build a Broadfork

Prepare the soil in your raised bed in one-sixth the time using a U-bar, also known as a broadfork.

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This article on how to build a broadfork is excerpted from the March/April 1980 Plowboy Interview with John Jeavons, author of "How to Grow More Vegetables and Fruits (and Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops) Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine."

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Because the good folks at Common Ground feel that even intermediate technology is often beyond the financial reach of the people who need it the most, they're constantly looking for sophisticated low technology solutions to the problems presented by small-scale agriculture.

One such innovation—the broadfork also known as a U-bar, shown in the accompanying photos and drawings — was designed at John Jeavons' request by two Stanford University engineering students ... who worked from traditional French and Canadian designs for similar tools. The digging implement is used after a bed has been initially well prepared with a spade and fork, and can — for all subsequent preparations — reduce the required digging time from approximately two hours per 100-square-foot bed to 20 minutes or less!

John has graciously allowed us to publish these drawings of a broadfork . . . so anyone who wants to try biointensive gardening can cut his or her labor time while keeping yields up.

Comments

  • Roland Green 2/14/2010 12:38:26 PM

    For Bert Boyd. I don't know how deep the roots go, but try using slates, placed vertically in the ground around the patch where you want the bamboo. Fibre cement slates are approx 2ft long and 1ft wide so the barrier will be quite deep. I have found this especially useful to contain patches of mint which will spread everywhere otherwise. The bits that do escape are easily pulled up.
    Another method would be to plant the bamboo in a container plunged into the ground.

  • Roland Green 2/12/2010 11:08:17 AM

    Looks like hard work and would defeat the puropse of raised bed which were mentioned, since to use the fork one would have to walk on the beds.
    The raised beds I have are 8ft x 4ft and require only a light forking over and then a till with a three pronged harrow type cultivator and the whole effort takes about fifteen minutes for a bed. The soil is much easier to work as it is never compacted by walking on it.
    I constructed the beds using 6" x 2" rough sawn timber and lined the inside face with a strip of dpc material wrapping it under the bottom edge and secured with clout headed galvanised felting nails; this keeps the soil out of contact with the timber. The outside can be treated with a timber preservative if required.
    The beds can be placed directly on cleared ground and filled with a mixture of soil and compost or, if converting an existing garden, in shallow trenches, the spoil from the trenches piled in the middle where the beds are to be; add plenty of compost and level off.
    Raised beds have the advantage in that vegetables can be 'block' planted, plants planted the same distance apart in all directions - no row spacing needed.
    Weeding is easy as well as all parts of the bed are easily reached from either side.
    Distance between beds need only be the width required for a wheelbarrow and a plank placed on the side boards of two adjecent beds makes a handy seat when weeding.

  • Bert Boyd 1/20/2010 8:25:49 AM

    Do you have any articles on building barriers to contain the spread of bamboo plants in an urban setting?

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