Flexrake Classic D Handle Digging Fork

Spring is Here: Got Your Spading Fork Warmed Up?

Though she's best known as a speculative fiction author, Canadian Margaret Atwood is also a gardener. In fact, she's the one who said, "In Spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt."

We gardeners spend winter cleaning our tools, salivating over garden catalogs, and dreaming that the soil is warm enough to begin planting so we can smell like dirt again. One tool I've been sharpening this winter is my Flexrake Spading Fork, the one with classic molded wooden D-handle (stock number CLA106). Spading forks are the tools we use to turn soil in our garden beds in spring and to harvest root vegetables like onions and potatoes come fall. They also come in handy for some emergency aeration. One won't replace a shovel for turning the soil of a new bed, however; nor is one any good for pitching hay and so forth because of that short handle.

Description Flexrake's version of the digging fork features a handsomely crafted 42-inch oak handle that splits at a Y to form a closed loop at the top. The four tines are powder-coated forged steel with a 3/8-inch cross-section, about 11" long and some 2" apart. The head is just over 7" wide, similar to the width of a standard shovel. The head is a little bit more than 7" wide, about the width of a regular shovel. The tines are sturdy steel with a slight bend at the midpoint, and the head has an eight-inch ferrule to fasten it to the handle. A potential weakness is that the head isn't forged as a unit; the tines and the ferrule are separate sections welded together.

Using the Flexrake Spading Fork

The old spading fork I picked up at a garage-sale decades ago bit the dust when it hit a monster rock while I was digging: one of the middle tines bent backwards, making the fork essentially useless. This one is tougher by far, perhaps because the tines are substantially thicker than my old one and made of a better grade of steel. It's nicely balanced, too, and comfortable to use. Well, as comfortable as spading a garden can be, which is a limited level of comfort...

The fork is classically designed, right down to the curving tines and the oak D handle. Unlike some of the cheap designs from BigBox stores, it's made with quality steel and put together with care (in China, just so you know). If properly taken care of, kept out of the rain, cleaned and sharpened regularly; a fork like this one could last a lifetime.

Summary

PLUS: classic design, handsome handle, solid construction
MINUS: the head isn't forged as a single unit
WHAT THEY'RE SAYING: A well-made spading fork like this one could conceivably last the gardener's lifetime.

Find a Spading Fork for your gardening needs at eBay