{"id":3688,"date":"2022-05-16T06:21:59","date_gmt":"2022-05-16T14:21:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=3688"},"modified":"2022-05-16T06:21:59","modified_gmt":"2022-05-16T14:21:59","slug":"ode-to-a-garden-fork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/ode-to-a-garden-fork\/","title":{"rendered":"Ode to a Garden Fork"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"garden<\/a>Nineteenth century poets, like John Keats, were fond of odes.\u00a0 Keats is particularly famous for a relatively short one extolling the beauty of a Grecian urn, and a longer one about a nightingale.\u00a0 If only he had lived long enough to be introduced to the sturdy garden fork that hangs in silence on my garage wall.\u00a0 Its many virtues would have merited at least 40 lyrical lines.<\/p>\n

While not as antiquated as Keats\u2019 Grecian urn, my garden fork is no spring chicken.\u00a0 It was made for Smith and Hawken, a once trendy garden and gardenalia supply company that existed from 1979 to 2009.\u00a0 It was part of a spade and fork set given to me when I retired as president of one of my town\u2019s civic organizations.\u00a0 Then and now, it is beautiful thing, about four feet tall with a polished wood shaft and sturdy, stainless steel tines.<\/p>\n

I put the spade to work the day after I received it and have used it hundreds of times over the years.\u00a0 It is no longer as pretty as it was on that first day, but has held up very well and done yeoman-like work in my compacted garden soil.<\/p>\n

The fork is another story.\u00a0 It is one of three that I own, and by far the most attractive of the trio.\u00a0 It has kept its good looks because I have hardly used it over the years.\u00a0\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Who knows?\u00a0 Other tools seemed more useful at various times and I was simply not in the habit of grabbing the garden fork when I went out to labor in the beds and borders.<\/p>\n

All of that changed a few weeks ago when I set out to attack a particularly weedy and compacted area in my front garden.\u00a0 Tenacious grass had crept into the beds, collaborating with deep-rooted onion grass and shallow-rooted spring weeds to commit acts of horticultural evil.\u00a0 In short, the area was a mess at a time when I needed weed-free soil in which to install all the young plants that arrive daily from the mail order vendors.<\/p>\n

I was raising my head at the end of the process of replacing the filament spool on my string trimmer when the tines of the garden fork caught my eye.\u00a0 At that moment, it was not a mere garden tool, but the answer to a prayer.\u00a0 I grabbed it and attacked the compacted soil.<\/p>\n

The sharp tines made short work of the job, getting down into the soil more efficiently and effectively than the blade of the spade.\u00a0 I was able to lift clods of clay soil with one thrust that would have taken twice the effort with other tools.\u00a0 Even the big clumps of onion grace yielded\u2014bulbs, roots and all.\u00a0 This is especially important because when onion grass bulbs stay in the soil, they go to work under the soil and reproduce prolifically, compounding next fall\u2019s weeding chores.<\/p>\n

Now the garden fork has become so indispensible that I fear the spade may feel neglected.\u00a0 I will use the fork to dig out some much-loved old rosebushes that have contracted the invariably fatal and highly contagious rose rosette disease.\u00a0 The fork will help me get down to the roots easily.\u00a0 Once I am done with that, I will soak the tines in a bleach solution and rub down the shaft and handle with disinfectant to prevent spread of the virus.\u00a0 Good tools can stand up to that kind of treatment.<\/p>\n

Replanting other non-rose perennials in the spaces vacated by those diseased roses will also be easier with the fork, as will creating new planting holes in other parts of the garden for the replacement roses.\u00a0 In addition to its other virtues, the fork will go a long way in reducing the physical\u2014if not psychological\u2014misery of having to take out favorite shrubs and rearrange the planting scheme.<\/p>\n

Garden forks are also handy in digging soil that is laced with rocks or shrub or tree roots.\u00a0 A spade will hit a big root or rock and stop.\u00a0 A good, sturdy garden fork like mine can wiggle between roots or rocks, lessening the labor, not to mention the gardener\u2019s frustration level.<\/p>\n

Of course, there are some situations where the spade still holds the edge.\u00a0 Sandy soil slips between fork tines; a spade will do a better job of clearing out holes.\u00a0 Shallow-rooted weeds, like chickweed, can probably be removed with a hand fork or a hoe.\u00a0 A good Japanese gardening knife\u2014sometimes known as a \u201chori hori\u2019 knife—is often all that is necessary to remove individual onion grass or crabgrass plants.<\/p>\n

Anyone needing new tools should invest in good ones.\u00a0 They may be more expensive, but will last longer.\u00a0 If you know a good gardener who is retiring or holding a house sale, check it out.\u00a0 I acquired some of my first and best garden tools at tag sales.\u00a0 For new tools and gardening supplies, one of the best vendors is Kinsman Garden Company, P.O. Box 428, Pipersville, PA 18947; (800)-733-4146; www.kinsmangarden.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nineteenth century poets, like John Keats, were fond of odes.\u00a0 Keats is particularly famous for a relatively short one extolling the beauty of a Grecian urn, and a longer one about a nightingale.\u00a0 If only he had lived long enough to be introduced to the sturdy garden fork that hangs in silence on my garage … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3,1,5],"tags":[2702,2701,2700,2703,130,2704,824],"class_list":["post-3688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-uncategorized","category-winter","tag-cultivating","tag-digging-tools","tag-garden-forks","tag-garden-implements","tag-garden-tools","tag-smith-and-hawken","tag-weeding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3688"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3691,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3688\/revisions\/3691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}