The broadfork that made light work of my clay

You stand on it to sink the tines in, then lean back, and it slices up and breaks the clay apart as it lifts — a gentle rock rather than a heave, your weight doing the work instead of your back. It's genuinely lovely to use on a still spring morning.

My soil is heavy clay, and I'd rather not run a petrol machine on the plot, so when I kept seeing growers recommend a broadfork I did my homework and took the plunge. It arrived late last summer and waited out the winter; this April I finally dug over the bed for potatoes and sunflowers.

The real gift was the bindweed. Its roots run through the clay like pale wires — long, fine threads you have to chase — and because the broadfork opens the soil so well, you can crumble the clumps apart by hand and draw each one out whole. There's real satisfaction in easing out a root that hasn't snapped (the broken bits are what grow back), and I lifted some gloriously long ones, roots and all, unbroken.

I'd also kept that bed under weed membrane the season before — months without light — and between the two it's far less vigorous now. A little still pops up, as bindweed always will, but the worst of it is gone.

Corn goes in the next patch, and I'm rather looking forward to digging it over.