TILLAGE
Cultivators: We’re spoiled for choice
C
onsider the humble
garden fork. You spear
it into the ground,
bury its prongs up to the hilt
under the weight of your
boot, wiggle it back and forth
to loosen a forkful of sod, lift
the sod up and proceed to
beat it to pieces with the
empty fork, before removing
weeds and stones that are
exposed in the process. And
in so doing you have
loosened and worked the soil
Hand-held powered cultivator
to a depth of no more than
20 cm or the length of the
prongs of the fork.
And that, in reality, is about
the maximum depth you will
reach whatever method you
use to work your soil, from a
manual fork right up to a
tractor and plough.
For today's gardeners and
smallholders are spoiled for
choice when it comes to
selecting equipment with
which to work the soil. It's all,
in fact, a matter of matching
the device to the size of land
one wishes to work, and the
type of soil that needs to be
cultivated.
Assuming one wants a
mechanical device, the small
gardener has at his disposal a
hand-held rotary cultivator
that fits on to the business
end of what starte