Compost sifting
Recently i’ve found myself spending an awful lot of time out by the compost piles, sifting the rocks out of the horse manure and twigs out of the rough compost, using a simple wire mesh. It’s slow, and takes a lot of energy. Hoping to find a better way, i searched the internet. There are a lot of different ideas out there.
Homemade Compost Sifter Screen Sieve shows the basic idea of making the screen slide, so you don’t have to hold it up. That’s the guy in the picture (that’s not me, although that’s exactly how i’m sifting now). Here are some detailed plans for how to make it with a slider, and some other people show how to build it with wheels. Some other people have built a rotating drum which looks nifty, and google even turns up some patents on that design.
Then, at the higher end, there are some big designs with serious motors, multiple screens, the sort of thing you’d want a front-loader to move your compost with. That’s out of my range.
So, i think we’re going to try building the slider approach, perhaps a bit bigger so it fits on the cart, which is bigger than the wheelbarrow. It’s a lot of work sifting an entire pickup truckload of manure!
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2 Responses to “Compost sifting”
May 9th, 2008 at 2:09 am
That IS alot of work just for sifting!
The photo’s method looks messy, too.
We have always made our screen sifters just long enough to fit across the wheelbarrow (without hanging over too much!), and then, with gloved hands, we will rub the compost/manure through the screen. Its very fast, and easy, and no lifting, and shaking of the screen is involved. But, you MAY need to hold the screen still while rubbing, sometimes.
If you have little kids around (neighborhood kids will work too!), they usually think this is a neat task. And, the little twigs, and rocks left behind are like finding treasure to them! lol
May 9th, 2008 at 2:18 am
The method in the photo looks very messy, and is waaaay too much work for such a simple job.
We have always made our sifting screens long enough to fit across the wheelbarrow, with as little overhang as possible. Then, with gloved hands, we rub the compost/manure through the screen. Sometimes, the screen may need to be held still.
If you have kids around, this task is usually seen as great fun to them. So, get them involved! The little twigs, rocks and debris left behind makes them feel like they are panning for gold! And, of course, compost/manure IS gold to us gardeners!
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