How to till without a tiller better than a tiller can till 

Here's a pro tip, anytime you have to dig in a fallow field, do so after you've had a little rain, but not the same day as the rain. You want the soil wet, so the blades will sink in, but not muddy.

Thank you for the tips, and I enjoyed that cow that was bound and determined to be heard. 😅

The "path to no where" needs to be a permanent feature of the new garden!

Over a five year period, using a broadfork and cover crops, my soil has transformed from heavy clay with a plow pan to dark loam. The Meadow Creature long fork is pretty incredible

I'm so glad that you found a place that has soil that doesn't require dynamite.

My friend made me one from scrap iron. Love it.

I have a Meadow Creature broadfork and I love it for breaking up my rocky clay soil and tenacious sod. On a side note, Tenacious Sod would be a great name for a bluegrass band.

This is my go-to human-powered tool for breaking new ground. You can get your own Meadow Creature here: meadowcreature.com/?rfsn=7763618.8366fec GROW OR DIE: amzn.to/3ASG235 Thank you all for watching. We're finally breaking ground on our new gardens!

OMG 😲. SO GLAD to see this. Lol I primarily use my broad fork to help keep my chicken run, and duck pens of deep bedding aerated, and sometimes I forget to use it elsewhere. 😅 A tool I like to use for removing Bermuda grass is a garden turner. Four prongs with a post and two handles that you just stab and twist.

I have a steel broad fork and was absolutely amazed at how easily it can turn soil.

I was looking through all your videos 2 days ago for this very subject. My mom loaned me her tractor tiller, but when she asked me to bring it over, my tractor was waiting on a water pump and I couldn't get it to her. My Meadow Creature showed up that morning, so it would be my first attempt tilling with no power in our rocky clay. I used my grub hoe to remove sod, then the Meadow Cresture to loosen the 200 square ft plot. Worked great, her cabbage, broccoli and beets got planted this morning. Now I just have to get back to working on that tractor water pump.

YES!!! the broad fork is like magic!! we got our first one this year. We now have aerated loose garden areas for the first time!!

Outstanding - THANK YOU! As a welder/handyman with a TON of scrap steel, and strapped for cash, this is a dream come true! Much appreciated!

Meadow Creature is definitely worth every cent. I went through 2 other brands that didn't even last 100-200 sq ft including the free replacements. DTG's original video popped up while I was researching and sure as 💩I was able to broadfork over 5000 sq ft of rocky decomposed granite and clay. It took a few weekends due to the hardpan but the fork definitely seems indestructible.

Here in SW MO those rocks make the wall for my garden beds.

I just purchased compost everything! It came in yesterday can’t wait to read it!

That soil looks lovely!

“How do you prepare garden beds without a tiller??” Haha, we dug up a huge garden (~1,000 sqft) with a WEEDING hoe in Midwestern black dirt as kids (I know that makes me sound old but I promise I’m only in my twenties). I remember the first time we borrowed a tiller from someone and watching it just chew through ground that took us days to work. Moral of the story is- where there is a will there is a way but use something better than a weeding hoe to break sod.

I'm glad I came acrossed your video this morning. I purchased a broad fork some months ago from a blacksmith in Tennessee and have yet to put it to real good use. I am also making a brand new garden out of a centipede lawn and will be going out today to broad fork it and then put a tarp back over it. My goal is to plant potatoes next weekend.

I bit the bullet last year and bought a Meadow Creature after watching you use it on several videos. I was hesitant about the price but I did it. It was a great investment. I'm able to turn over ground to a depth that would require a tractor with a disc harrow, and that's with heavy clay soil. I've got 6" of good topsoil and nothing but hard, red clay underneath. The meadow creature rips through it like it's nothing. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to break ground for any reason.

Hardpan requires DYNAMITE to break loose. It is literally rock hard. That's what settlers had to do. If you did that tilling in the fall, then turned that sod upside down, by spring time you have great soil and little to no weeds. Worms are deep in the soil by then. Fun fact: modern tilling nearly made the Mormon Cricket extinct. And that is a GOOD thing.

Would you do a video on the absolute most necessary gardening hand tools?

They definitely aren't cheap at a few hundy each. But then again tractors start at ten grand. I could pay for one and have some kid do all the work for cheaper than a tractor. I've always had a leaning towards human powered tools. People think about how much labor mechanization saves but they don't factor in the cost of buying the machinery. I can get to my local grocery store almost as fast as a car on my mountain bike but I don't spend hours each week paying for a car so in the end I come out way in front on the overall time expended.

Goodness I love this guy. He takes the snootyness out of gardening. It isn't a recreational pass time. If you're not a billionaire, it's self preservation. It's so nice to see modern day agricultural science in the hands of folks like us. Thanks man, hope you and your family stay and accelerate your prosperity

My 4 pigs turn my ground in preparation. I don’t disturb the soil much ever once my pigs have done their job. Currently they are turning half an acre ready for my vineyard. They just spent 2 months turning my 1/2 acre for pumpkins and watermelons. Not sure where they are going next.

I found d that with this method, running a wheel hoe with 2 tines helped rip the grass out nicely while leaving the soil behind. Then rake the rest.

Clay and rock soil here in central Portugal. I am so jealous when I watch gardening videos of digging over new beds etc. Takes me days of digging and destoning using a trommel.

Had mine for a few years, I was glad to find one in New Zealand made by the Crafty Gardener, it was expensive but soon paid it way, been breaking new ground with it since. Sometimes I use a long blade hoe that is solid steel to chop away grass first. Until I broke it today. So, back to just broad forking. That is a huge area to broadfork David, but at least you have an army of helpers in the family.

My husband says your sidewalk to nowhere must be a government project😁

Wow what am amazing tool…will certainly look into this clever hard working garden helper…STAY BLESSED

Thank you for this. Been tilling with only a shovel. I will now make one of these

Great video... have a REQUEST: could you do a video on organic gardening ideas for people who live in homes that have HOA's? We can't just "throw things on the ground," and gardens must look "nice." Funny, the POA pushes for use of chemicals in the yards (keep that grass lush and weed-free!), but having a compost pile is forbidden ("unsightly"). I have "cheated" punching holes in an old plastic garbage can and composting in that while hiding it behind a tree LOL! Lots of folks inner-farmer being snuffed out due to deed restrictions, so would love to see a video on creative ducking the POA police.

I just got a meadow creature...once again, DTG, you’ve inspired me!

I use the LAM broadfork. It’s solid steel and pretty cheap.

Thanks David. Sorry I missed the premiere. One day I will own a Meadow Creature. It is on my needs list. It looks so much easier than a hoe, shovel/sharpshooter and fork. Much Love

Very nice! From where I come from, we use good old shovel and rakes method. You just have to use a shovel to flip each chunk of soil in the air and drop it down from high enough so that it breaks apart on impact. Most weeds end up up side down; then you use rakes to smooth out the surface and grab any remaining small rocks or bigger weeds. But still, I would prefer your method here to till some very rocky or compacted soil, because doing it with a shovel is a bit of a nightmare if anywhere you dig there's a rock and you get constant sparks. As always, thanks for great tips, David!

Good 🏃 exercise. Nice intro. Love the sound of the cows 🐄

Great tool easily pulls up large running bamboo rhizomes, in 5 years have only bent the handles a little. still works great!

Looking good bro!

Maybe they can weld handles on the inside part of the posts so one can do dips while digging! 😀

I LOVE mine! I showed it to hubby several years back and told him he could make me one. He welds and we had a couple old pitch forks that didn't have handles. So he put those together and made the thing you step on and welded them to it and put handles on it. To start out when he made it the thing weighted a ton. lol so he took some of the metal off it and now it's perfect!!!

I'd love to have a broadfork. I don't know about clay soil but, in glacial till, which is full of stones, a tiller is a hundred pound beast that will wear you out! I used a tiller to beat the sod apart. After that, it's a digging fork to loosen the native soil. Soooo much more relaxing!

I really like your soil, it looks very rich.

Based on your recommendation in an earlier video, I bought this broad fork and it has been one of the best investments ever-easy to use and perfect for our compacted clay!

The sound of the roots breaking at 1:00 would make a good ASMR video. You know, for weirdos.

Oh my. Looks like a lot of work!

That’s how I do my gardens every year, by hand. I used a digging fork this year and it really made a difference in the texture of the soil for much longer than a spade. I haven’t bought a broad fork because they are ridiculously over priced. Once you get into specialty or niche products people ask crazy prices.

I don't put the dry weeds in a compost pile...I burn them and put the ash from them either into the compost or on the garden bed. Broadforks are expensive for the small gardener but it seems they are worth the expenditure...and...you get exercise too! Thanks David for the video encouragement.

John Jeavons double dig I met him at one of his demonstrations in Austin, Tx and also did a 3 week class with Bill Mollison in Half Moon Bay🥰

Thanks David, that's awesome!

I really appreciate this video. I’m starting a garden for the first time, and I have a decent amount of space to play around with for my purposes. I want to use human powered tools through the whole process, for the sake of being able to maintain it without having to worry about gas prices or tending to horses/oxen (also expensive!) I have been trying to determine the most efficient tools for the job, and the broadfork seemed to hold a lot of promise….however I have been seeing so many sources say that broadforks are not recommended to break up new ground. Perhaps this is due to the partially wood construction. I have had my eye on the Meadow Creek broadfork from the start, and I’m happy to hear its successfully broken up a lot of new dirt for you. With something that can be as labor intensive as gardening, I would think one would strive for longevity and durability of tools. Would you rather spend $150 on something that you will need to replace in a couple of years (or less, depending!) or would you rather pay $250 for something that potentially lasts a lifetime? As much as I love the aesthetic of wood handles, I’ll have plenty of other implements that can fill that void LOL.

Yes! The broadfork! We have hard clay and rock. 🤦‍♀️

I've been doing the same with my compost fork. Twice as much traveling around but quite good still. Saves me from spending on another tool for now too. A garden fork would probably be better but I use what I already have :) We have VERY rocky soil and are by a busy road so I am afraid a rototill could be quite dangerous. It's bad enough when the lawnmower finds a rock. Also just kind of excessive for a small backyard plot.

That tool costs nearly $300. A 50cc gas tiller costs $200. You can make your own fuel with a still (and have a drink for after your tilling work).

Great info, thanks. Sounds like you have very happy cows : )

Till next time...

Good morning!

The broad fork is awesome for my suburban back yard. My ground has 5-6in of soil sitting on top of a layer of rocks on top of white sand. It’s harder work, breaking it up, but it gets much easier the second and third time around.

Thanks David I'm so gonna get 1 have a blessed day 🙏 ☺ 🇺🇸 👍

I can vouch for the Treadlite broadfork with the steel handles in compacted light clay. It's solid!

I bought one, was abut $100 on amazon, its junk, to light for anything. So spend the extra and get a good heavy broadfork.... I used a two wheeled tractor spent this year collecting obsolete cultivators etc for it, My favorite is powered with an 80cc $100 HF engine, it started as a tiller. then in a lot of antique junk, I found one with the same chassis, BUT HAD wheels. and a middle buster plow. So over the next few months I manged to find a few more of the iron V cultivators to go behind it. My rocky soil, has basket ball sized flat rocks and its a challenge. Love you videos David, great inspiration, I share them to gab in the homesteading off grid group. Thank you.

That's an awesome tool. I have not seen one before. I'm not sure if we have one out here at the settlement. Thanks David!

I have Bermuda grass (I hate it!), I don't have a broad fork but I have a pitchfork. I'm gonna try this, thanks for the video!

Never lose the trademark white socks 😂💖

Beautiful soil 👍👌

I notice you mentioned the hard rocky clay. A pick works amazing for me in that type of soil. I just squat down, let the pick do the work, don't even break a sweat like you're doing here, Sensei. Cheers!

My first garden was in Denver. I used a garden spade and a rake. LOL

Thanks.

Still have shards of fiberglass in my arm from 5 minutes of use of one bought at walmart. Somewhere a chinamen is LHAO.

I have a different brand broadfork that's pretty good but the handles bolt on, are fiberglass over wood, and I'm afraid I'll break them eventually. My soil, if you can call it that, is clay with virtually no organic matter. Trying to cover crop and get some production at the same time. Plus new area, climate, and pests. Will consider their 16 inch model.

Loving seeing you start this all from scratch again! Everything you’ve shared has been really helpful. Future video ideas: 1. How to interpret the soil test from Logan Labs.. some categories said what the amounts should be with acceptable ranges, but others didn’t. What does it all mean and what should our next steps be? 2. A video with a list of plants that are helpful in unexpected ways.. like things that are not necessarily edible, but help the edibles because they are nitrogen fixing, great for biomass, etc. I know you have a bit of these fun facts mixed in with every video, but it would be cool to see a top favorites list.

I gave thumbs up just for the name 👍

By far, the broad fork is my favorite gardening/digging tool.

So my dog has been digging almost in a straight line, sniffs hard moves about 6 inches down and starts digging. It was where I wanted to to build my garden so we worked on it together, me with a hoe and him digging. We found field tile in my back yard, im not sure how far apart field tile is, but about 20-25 feet away my yard floods around my house. Which leads me to believe they broke tile when constructing this home.

Hi David, wondering if you put a semi circle / bow shaped above the cross beam on the handles, to give greater lifting leverage and lifting height,.(Pivot point) They may need to be broad for for soft ground ? Like the sound of the calf in the background.

Not in my clay. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 I top dress with wheel barrows of fresh manure straight from the stalls. I pile it in the rows I want to plant later, water the rows regularly, keep them from spreading out by raking into mounds. I keep adding as they compost. As they compost the worms work in and out, the clay softens and absorbs the nutrients from the manure. In a little while I have rows to plant in. 🤣 I will say, the first year, I planted directly into the fresh manure and had great success. Be advised it was all horse manure that was pure alfalfa based, so no weed seeds. Horse manure isn't weedy if you don't feed them weeds 😉

I did that but with a hatchet type tool I got in Japan. Took hours. With I had a broad fork. Maybe the Christmas Bunny will bring me one.

Can’t wait to buy one. Need to save up. Awesome tool 👍

DO NOT, people, buy that $100 amazon broadfork. I got that for Christmas. It can NOT handle crab grass or the random boulder/chimney bricks. I was so traumatized (omg my back) that I bought a 2 pk of meadow creature broadforks. It's WORK. Make no mistake. WORK WORK. But it's worse when you get the job half done and then the yard reclaims the work you did while waiting on the replacement tool in the mail and you have to start over. Also, the easy digging grub hoe.... survived my finding the kids had left it out in a side yard with a john deere riding mower. The MOWER didn't, but the grub hoe is still trucking.

I recognized that sound at 5:50 as the sound of a hot humid day beginning. No fun.

Now that’s a forking Good apparatus 🔱✨✅

I priced the broad fork I need. 289$ I'm gonna plant some plants to sell.

I use blue tarps to kill weeds and kill the seeds in ground. A week or two and everything is dead under a blue tarp. We have a thin layer 2" of top soil with white sand under it in northern MI. Tilling don't work for us, because we loose our top soil into the sand. Found it better to leave all nutrients where they are at.

“Moo” 🐮. I like that sound

My tiller broke, just in time for spring planting! I've broken digging forks in my clay soil before; we'll see how my broadfork fares. 😅

Would the 16 inch broadfork be much of an advantage over the 12 inch?

Ok, I’m convinced. I found out a new garden area was a riding ring for horses in the past. Oops. It definitely has a hard pan layer. This should work, I hope

That title is reminiscent of: "How would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood? A woodchuck would chuck wood if a woodchuck could chuck wood!".....LMAO

Sure hope you can find a close neighbor with a tractor to begin this huge garden space quickly and for more easily then by hand.

Just bought the 14 inch tine one from meadow creature really looking forward to getting in my plots and making the neighbors think im losing my mind lol

Would this be an effective tool to use on recently cleared land still populated with roots and small shrubbery? The goal is to seed a simple lawn area on the side of the house. Thx.

Your music is awesome-I love fall into you. When are you coming out with a full Album? I don’t know how you have the time to do everything you are doing. God bless you & your family.

Do you have a link for that broadfork

have you tried using a pressure washer to till with

Used a broad fork in my clay and loam soil, it worked but it was absolutely exhausting to do in my hard soil.

At the beginning of your video, I thought cows had something to do with the tilling, judging by the sounds in the background.

I love the sidewalk to NOWHERE ! David, how much land are you going to broadfork?

I really wish I had one of these when I was digging my beds over the past months. A shovel in the spading fork are not exactly efficient tools for this. But damn these things are expensive.

What do you do with the soil after broadforking, if you have many clumps still left?

Wait, you can get your broadfork to go all the way into your soil? Maybe I should stop this carnivore diet and gain some weight! A tip for novices with the broadfork. Don't do it in bone dry soil. Best after some rain. :)