sifter

[notme]

wondering if anyone has any good plans for a soil sifter, want to clean the stones/rocks out of the garden, and hopefully eventually find somewhere in the bush i can liberate some black soil for around the yard?

 

[tthopskin@yahoo.ca]

we have done this for years ...if you can get a piece of screen make a jig to hold it on a angle . then at the top dump your dirt slowly on the screen the good stuff falls threw... the bad stays too the out side ..the finer the screen the finer the dirt ....have fun its slow but works

 

[Ken]

I use the tail gate off a lawn mower service trailer. 5'X5' and expanded metal with bracing to stay in shape.
place at slight angle and shovel soil so the rocks and trash rolls to bottom soil falls threw the screen .
Adding mulch or compost is the best way of improving the soil when bring in material from a somewhere else also brings in weeds vines that has to be gotten rid of.
Also good exercise.
ken

 

[brucewj]

I use the tail gate off a lawn mower service trailer. 5'X5' and expanded metal with bracing to stay in shape.
place at slight angle and shovel soil so the rocks and trash rolls to bottom soil falls threw the screen ......

ken

I did the same thing that Ken did. Worked pretty good. I had to use a garden rake to work the soil thru the tailgate, but I did not have the resources (or the smarts) to have a vibrating tailgate.

Now if I could just get my garden to quit growing rocks so I won't have to repeat the procedure.

 

[Ken]

I did the same thing that Ken did. Worked pretty good. I had to use a garden rake to work the soil thru the tailgate, but I did not have the resources (or the smarts) to have a vibrating tailgate.

Now if I could just get my garden to quit growing rocks so I won't have to repeat the procedure.

I startted to toss rocks out of this garden when Dad purchased in 1949 and have did so every year that I helped with it.
Each 75 foot row will have a wheel barrow load each time it was hoed.

A few years ago decided to get the problem over come . Started to filter the soil with this tail gate and FEL dump a bucket on tail bed and use the laoder to shake the soil away from the rocks. Haul rocks to place that needs rocks.
After a tornado had 30 acre of timber that a dozer stacked into a long window and burned this ash and dirt brought to garden so now have over 6 inch mulch then 6 inch of compost roto tilled into a rock free garden and almost no weeds. Still working on getting the eggs of bugs out this year the pumpkin bugs were bad.
when pulling up a plant the ground was full of small bugs.
If it causes sweat it is benifical to the garden.
ken

 

[Lloyd_E]

I use the tail gate off a lawn mower service trailer. 5'X5' and expanded metal with bracing to stay in shape.
place at slight angle and shovel soil so the rocks and trash rolls to bottom soil falls threw the screen .
Adding mulch or compost is the best way of improving the soil when bring in material from a somewhere else also brings in weeds vines that has to be gotten rid of.
Also good exercise.
ken

Thank you!!!! I been thinking about how to make a soil screener. The gate off my trailer is not used that often - maybe twice in 5 years. It is 72"x60" with about 3/4 to 1" expanded metal and an angle iron frame. Very heavy I can just barely lift it. I can make a wooden frame out of 4"x4"x8' posts to get the position correct. And if I make it slightly less than 4' in depth I can move it around with my forks.

Thanks again!

 

[Ken]

Thank you!!!! I been thinking about how to make a soil screener. The gate off my trailer is not used that often - maybe twice in 5 years. It is 72"x60" with about 3/4 to 1" expanded metal and an angle iron frame. Very heavy I can just barely lift it. I can make a wooden frame out of 4"x4"x8' posts to get the position correct. And if I make it slightly less than 4' in depth I can move it around with my forks.

Thanks again!

Maybe leave attached to trailer and when sifting the rocks already are loaded. Fence "T" posts will hold up the gate or a pipe .
Watch a lazy person work he will find a easier way of getting things done.
ken