DIY Broad Fork

Two weeks ago, theferalone wrote a great article titled: "Homesteader’s Starter Pack #3: The Market Gardener". It was full of great tools that I would enjoy having that could make life easier on a homestead; but unfortunately, almost all were out of our price range. However, some of the tools were able to be built by a homesteader. One example is a broad fork, good for breaking soil that looks like a good tool to have to dig potatoes. Amazon sells one for $200.00 and overall has really good reviews. But who wants to pay that?? ( You can check it out here if you do. https://www.amazon.com/Garden-Gardeners-Adjustable-Eco-Friendly-Ergonomically/dp/B00V9GZLDA/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1513480407&sr=8-3&keywords=broad+fork)

So tonight we built our own, using some old material we salvaged from our neighbor's scrapyard. He generously gave us a section of wrought iron railing and a few other small pieces of metal.

The ends of a fence were 1" HSS tube steel and the top and bottom were 1"x 3/8" and 1.5" x 3/8" flat bar.

Now we needed to come up with a solution for the digging forks. We decided to use 60 penny nails that are 8" in length. They are 3/8" diameter so they should hold up well but we wanted to make them interchangeable since our soil is rocky.

Plan was in place so it was time to start cutting the material to length. The width in 28" out to out, the height of the poles was 57" (this can vary depending on your height), and we decided to use 8 digging forks.

Drilling 3/8" holes for the 60 penny nails.

Now it was time to weld the poles together. We also added the 1' stiffener (1" x 3/8" bar) on the bottom to tie everything together and make it solid.

It is missing a coat of paint but this is the finished product. We haven't had rain (ok less than 1/2") in 75 days so the ground is hard, but the fork went in and worked well.

We would love to see what you are building our your homestead to make your lives easier! Thanks for reading and commenting!