Tools Used to Cultivate

When it comes to tools used to cultivate, the choices are many. Power cultivators such as rototillers can make a big job easier, but many organic gardeners prefer to cultivate by hand for a more environmentally friendly method of cultivation. In "Essential Tools for Working the Soil," Joe Queirolo says he prefers the following hand tools: D-handle spade and garden fork; cultivating fork; deep spader, and level head rake. Add a gardening spade for breaking up large clumps of soil.

A gardening spade is perhaps the most common hand tool used for cultivation and one that most people are familiar with. Designed to break up (or spade) clumps of soil, it has a pointed blade and is made to be pushed into the soil with your foot.

Shorter than a gardening spade, the handle end of this tool is shaped like the letter D, which according to Queirolo, places less strain on your wrists. The short shaft allows you to apply your weight for leverage and the flat steel blade cuts through soil easily, allowing you to dig at a uniform depth. It is also handy for straight edging work and dividing clumps of perennials.

The D-handle garden fork, also known as a steel digging fork, has a forged head with four thin, round tines. It is used to loosen soil, cultivate and aerate, mix in soil amendments, lift refuse from the wheelbarrow to the compost pile, and dig potatoes.This is just a good all-around garden tool.

A cultivating fork is like a hoe, but with tines rather than a single blade. It chops out weeds and breaks up compact surface soil. The cultivating fork is used first on weedy or neglected beds that require an initial breakup of the topsoil to ease the task of deeper cultivation. It is also good for loosening, mixing and chopping soil. Queirolo recommends it for chopping and mixing manure into the bed.

A deep spader is often called for when you need deeper cultivation. It is a heavy piece of equipment that is "built to penetrate tough soils" and is used "for serious, large-scale gardening," Queirolo says, adding it is "shaped like a large fork with a handle made of 1-inch pipe, a tubular crossbar and four 16-inch-long pointed triangular blades." The gardener pitches it into the soil then stands atop it, like a pogo stick, rocking it back and forth, and side to side as it sinks into the ground. When it is as deep as it will go, the handle is pulled back toward the user with a foot on the handle, to break up the subsoil.

The level head rake is really a finishing tool after cultivation is complete. It is used to smooth the surface and break up remaining clumps of soil. Its level head does not flex like a bow rake when breaking up soil and the back can be used to smooth soil surfaces.