How to Choose the Best Broadfork for Your Farm or Garden
The best broadfork is not simply the heaviest tool or the one with the most tines. The right choice depends on your soil, bed system, how much leverage you expect to use, and whether you are working established beds or opening harder ground.
Start with your soil conditions
For established market-garden beds and prepared soil, a lighter broadfork is usually easier to use for routine aeration. In hard, rocky, compacted, or previously unworked ground, durability in the lower handle area becomes much more important because the tool may be subjected to greater leverage.
That is why The GOAT™ is offered in two versions. The All Wood model is intended for established beds, prepared soil, and routine aeration. The Bottom Steel model uses steel lower handles for difficult ground where more leverage is expected.
Look closely at tine shape
Broadfork tines do more than enter the soil. Their shape affects how the soil moves. We prefer large round forged tines because they are designed to penetrate, lift, and open the soil rather than slice through it like a flat blade.
If tine design is important to you, see our guide to round vs. flat broadfork tines.
Choose a working width that fits your beds
Wider broadforks cover more bed with each pass, while narrower forks are easier to maneuver in tight spaces. The GOAT™ is 26.5 inches wide. The Billy GOAT™ Broad Fork is 19.5 inches wide and uses an adjustable T-handle.
For tighter work, the Billy GOAT™ Garden Fork is 14 inches wide with 3.5-inch tine spacing. For root-crop harvesting and very close work, the Billy GOAT™ Root Fork is 14 inches wide with six closely spaced tines.
Wood or steel lower handles?
Wood keeps a tool lighter and comfortable to use, but it has limits. Wood handles can break if the tool is heavily leveraged in hard, rocky, compacted, or previously unworked ground. If those are your normal conditions, choose a model designed for that work rather than asking a lighter tool to do a heavier job.
Which Neversink broadfork fits which job?
- The GOAT™ All Wood: routine aeration in established beds and prepared soil.
- The GOAT™ Bottom Steel: rocky, hard, compacted, or previously unworked ground.
- Billy GOAT™ Broad Fork: narrower broadforking with an adjustable T-handle.
- Billy GOAT™ Garden Fork: tighter garden work and more intensive soil loosening.
- Billy GOAT™ Root Fork: root-crop harvesting and intensive soil aeration.
Whichever model you choose, broadforking should loosen and aerate the soil without turning the soil profile upside down. For technique, see How to Use a Broadfork.