It’s Spring! and Time for Spading is Just Around the Corner

Truper 4-Time Spading Fork 

First-time gardeners with spading forks

We gardeners tend to spend those long winter nights cleaning and repairing our tools, drooling all over gardener porn (I mean those pretty pictures in seed catalogs, you dog!), and dreaming about the day the soil will finally be warm enough for planting. One of the tools you'll find me sharpening over the winter is my trusty Truper 4-Tine Spading Fork. This isn't Satan's pitchfork or the kind of fork you use to pitch hay to your horse, it's the kind that has a short handle topped by a big D.  A spading fork is how a gardener turns the soil in a garden bed each spring, and they’re also used for digging out root vegetables come fall. They can also be pressed into service for minor lawn aeration if needed. A fork won’t replace a shovel for turning over soil in a new bed, nor is this short-handled model up to mucking out a horse stall.