I'm attempting to straighten out what used to be a nice back yard. It has been neglected for several years. In working with this, I've found that in many places that I dig, there is as much gravel as dirt. Now there are places that I want gravel and that I want dirt. What is the best way to sort the gravel from the dirt? Is there a sorting/screening method? There must be a better way than discarding this soil/rock mix for soil and rock that are sorted out.

 

Hello corinth134

If you don't mind doing a LOT of work, there are soil screens available that sift out different sized materials - rocks and pebbles for instance from loose soil.

I made one using galvanized 3/4" screening fabric in a frame and just this year modified an old furnace motor to vibrate the sieve when suspended from saw horses on both ends - saved a bit of work shaking the sieve, but still had to shovel the (compost in my case) into the sieve and out from underneath it and empty the larger materials as they took up space in the sieve.

Here's a page to from favorite 'toy' store's website with examples of the sieves available - the one I made looks a lot like the bottom one...
http://www.leevalley.com/garden/page...egory=2%2C2200

Btw, you'll have to copy the address to your browser address bar to link to the page since some pranksters were visiting this forum and abusing it a bit so the Administrators have disabled the vB codes to stop their 'fun'.

Hope this helps

Howie

 

Howie's got a good idea. I made my screen out of rabbit wire
(1/2 inch mesh) and attached it to a frame that fit over my lawn cart. My vibrator was hand activated though.

fred