Green Garden Hand Fork

A hand fork for the work you do kneeling down. It breaks up the crust that forms on a bed after watering and after the sun has been on it, lifts weeds with the root attached instead of snapping the top off, and mixes compost or manure into the soil around a plant without disturbing what is already growing there.

This is the tool for a kitchen garden, a nursery bed, a row of sukuma and tomatoes, and for pots and containers where nothing larger will fit. A fork does what a trowel cannot: the tines go into packed soil and lever it apart, while a trowel blade just slides along the top of it. Around established plants the tines also let you work close to stems without cutting roots. It is a simple hand tool bought in pairs and threes, since it is the one that always goes missing between the bed and the store.