Benefits of a U-Bar or Broad Fork
A appropriate tech tool for gardeners, farmers and homesteaders. The broad fork will allow you to build soil life fast and maintain it to grow healthy drought and decease resistant crops.
Loosen Your Soil
Compared to a “Rotokiller”, A broad fork allows more air and water to be held in your soil increasing soil life and faster root development. A properly cropped and mulched bed may only need to be Broad Forked once every three years.
Fast Top Soil Creation
Faster root growth means healthier plants that are more drought resistant. The U-Bar loosens the soil much deeper then a rotokiller without creating any Hard Pan Layer
Gentile soil Aeration
The tines of the fork comb through the soil strata to aerate it without changing the the soils profile. The tines are gentle and don’t kill any worms, beetles or other critters.
Reduces Weeds
The fork combs weed roots to the surface without chopping them up into little bits where they will re-sprout. The U-Bar is silent, does not stink, you don’t have to start it or feed it gas and if used properly is very easy on your body.
Simple, Elegant and Scaleable. Made ergonomic, for a regenerative power source.
Broad Forks are one of my Favorite Tools on the farm!
I love the Broad Fork simplicity and ease of use. The U-bar (or broad fork, as it is sometimes called) has been used in Europe for centuries. Not a common tool in the US, though every gardener wants one. Comfort and Technique – The U-bar is a stand up type of tool. Holding the tool in almost a vertical position, you dance on it sinking the tines into the soil, back up a step and pull the handles towards you. Causing it to leverage up the soil. The motion makes for an almost effortless soil loosening. Your back is spared virtually any stress at all, yet the soil is loosened thoroughly. Pull out the U-bar and move it a few inches back and repeat the process. Once you get a rhythm you can loosened a 100 square feet of garden bed in a matter of minutes all with low stress. The U-bar is a spading fork on steroids, but rather than turning the soil, it aerates down without mixing the soil strata, maintaining soil health and life force. Producing a deeply aerated planting bed while combing the weed roots intact to the top where they can be raked off. Long handles provide extraordinary leverage, allowing a person of average strength to loosen large areas in a fraction of the time and effort it would take with a conventional fork. Not suitable for clay or rocky soil, but in a loamy or light soil, it is a dream to operate. It can have from 5 to 8 steel tines as long as 10 to 20 inches. Most good U-bars have leverage at the back of the bar holding the tines. Measuring around 58″ tall, and weighing around 20 pounds.
There are a couple of versions on the market, but they are prone to bending or breaking under normal use. After researching the ones available and testing a few, I took the best qualities and designed what I feel is the best overall broad fork. Using mostly recycled steel pipes and bar stock, I have custom built several different sizes for our farm and you can too. Make a U-bar suited for your body and soil for around $50 -$100 in materials.
If you have welding and metal working skills and want to build your own, I have plans on how to build them available for a suggested donation of $10.
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Try it, your body, soil and soul will love it!
