6 Steel Tines 20 in Wide BroadFork Garden Tool, 52 inch Heigh Durable Handles, Ergonomic U-Shaped Design, Black Hand Tiller Broad Fork Great for Farm and Garden, Digging Crushing Aerate Soil

This thing is pretty strong for something that's made of parts you bolt together. Not sure you'd have a prayer breaking up ground that was virgin but on previously disturbed ground it generally works.I say "generally" because of my test: I've got some pretty dense dirt in a garden that hasn't been turned over in over 10 years. Some critter dug a pretty deep hole in the middle of it that I wanted to fill in so I thought I'd give this tool a try to see if I could break up some of the surrounding soil to fill it back in. We've been in a pretty deep drought for a month or so so the ground was pretty baked.First I tried pushing the tines in with my foot but it was like pressing down on concrete. So I started taking this tool in both hands and slamming the tips into the ground which slowly started producing results. After each pounding I rotated the tool to leverage the tines and they started to break out the soil a little bit at a time. As soon as I got through that hard outer crust then the tines started really showing their stuff. It was pretty amazing how much soil I loosened so fast - very impressed. And the soil was nice and broken apart too.The secret here is that the front of the tines are very pointed with a really shallow slope on them. It took getting very little of the length into the soil to get the ball rolling on breaking up that hard outer layer. The top of the tines has a 90 degree bend for reinforcement so even hitting it a little hard didn't put a bend in anything.I think this is a great tool to have around and I'm so glad I got it. Highly recommended.

A hefty garden tool for hefty jobs - this broad fork lifts soil and flower bulbs with ease.Used to dig up Dahlia tuber in the Midwest. I like that you can put your full body weight on this tool since the handles are on either side instead of the middle. Because of the wider tines, sometimes this is necessary.Construction overall is pretty impressive. The only change I would make is that the cross bar at the top of the handles fits a little too loosely for my taste. Even with the nut/bolt tightened all the way, there is space between the tubing of the cross bar and the handles themselves. This allows the handles to twist a bit as you use the fork.

When I first assembled this I was a bit nervous about how bit it is. It stands at 5'4" tall and I was first thinking how the heck would I use it and much less how would my wife who is 5'3" use it. I'm 6'3" so it wasn't too big to handle but once I figured out how I'd use it, the leverage you get from it makes it work amazingly well on hard compacted soils. The tines are super strong and thick and can drive into hard soils no problem. You can then simply pull down on the tines or for my wife, she can hand from the center bar nearly and loosen tough soils with ease. It makes super easy work of turning your soils and getting to a nice deep depth too.Construction and assembly was easy for us. It seems strong enough to last a while and the only thing I could see breaking it would be if a tine got stuck under a root and you really tried to lift it up and you could possibly deform the handle as the metal isn't super thick. This makes it more easy to handle but could make it more susceptible to damage too.

I don't know how much use this will get because it is so heavy. Very fatiguing to lug around and lift up and down. Very sturdy and easy to assemble.

I deal with mix of soils including clay and don't have (or want) heavy equipment to deal with it. I hadn't heard of broadforks until I saw a product description, as was intrigued as I am always looking for ways to avoid tilling soil.This broadfork arrived needing assembly, which took me about 30 minutes. The bolts were a bit tricky to to align attaching the rake head to the lower hande, but eventually I got them threaded. The spare bolt and nut were appreciated. Assembly time took me 30 minjutes. The instructions are actually for "assembly" not "use" of the tool, and not all the bolts are the same length, despite the instructions showing this.This is a heavy and sturdy tool that I was able to use to easily pierce and aerate the soil in an existing iris bed. The hardware didn't in my case make for a rock-olid assembly -- there is wobble at the joints -- but this may not matter a lot. The bolts aren't galvanized, so this tool mahy need some protection from the elements.I found a video by "The Dutch Farmer" explaining how to insert and wiggle the broadfork to loosen deeper soil, with other useful tips on broadforks. The sharp strong blades of this tool do a good job here. It is not necessary or recommended to turn over the soil, only to relieve the compaction of deeper soil and preseve the existing layering of micro-organisms.Review of 6 Steel Tines 20 in Wide BroadFork Garden Tool, 52 inch Heigh Durable Handles, Ergonomic U-Shaped Design, Black Hand Tiller Broad Fork Great for Farm and Garden, Digging Crushing Aerate Soil