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General => Top Tips => Topic started by: Palustris on February 11, 2004, 20:17:49
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How I made a large riddle to sieve lots of soil.
All measurements are in Imperial because I have not yet mastered metric. And they are approximate since I used what was at hand.
Using 1.5 in by 1in roofing lath timber I constructed a rectangle of 5 feet by 3 feet. The corners were butt jointed and strengthened with corner brackets. (This size was made because that was the size of piece of chicken wire I had available.)
I stapled a sheet of 1/2 in chicken wire stretched tightly to the frame. To give more stability and to stop the mesh sagging I also stretched straining wire every foot across and down, woven through the mesh.
Then I fastened legs of same size timber to the top of the frame so that it sloped about 60 degrees. (Need to experiment to find best angle). When in use I also used a couple of tent pegs to stop the frame moving backwards when soil was thrown at it.
Dry (and it needs to be dry) soil is thrown (not too hard) at the top third of the frame. As it trickles down larger than wanted pieces stay on one side and smaller pieces go through.
If you wanted a more robust and longer lasting gadget than you could use the wire mesh sold for outside aviaries.
The angle of the legs should be such that the soil trickles down and breaks up as it goes, too shallow and it sticks, too steep and it falls off.
This does not work on wet or clay soil. Sorry, but then neither does the old fashioned garden sieve. Either way it is stii hard work, But at least you do not have the weight of the soil to lift as in a conventional system.
Now watch the experts come up with a better idea.
Photos not available, this film was lost be developers, before digtal too.
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Thanks for posting this Eric I will most certainly be giving this riddle a go and appreciate your kindness in sharing :)
regards flower
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Thank you very much Eric. You are a real sweety and have saved me hours and hours of grinding backache once i get the soil broken up. Have a big suss :-*
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I have lost track of the backbreaking hours i hace spent sieving my stony soil, either to get a fine tilth for grass seed sowing or to extract the stones for hardcore. I have always used a standard metal seive for the work, placed over a wheel barrow and shaken vigorously. At times i wondered why I did it and whether there was a beter way.
In fact Erics design reminded ne of a section in an old gardening book i have that was my grandfathers' printed back in the 1930's. This shows a similar construction, which was placed at an angle and soil thrown at it with a spade. The Idea being the soil went through and piled up on the other side with the stones remaining on your side.
I thought this is all very well but would only work on certain soils (probably a sandy one with gravel mixed in), but not on my chalky clay (marl) since it woult be too lumpy to go through the netting.
This just shows that sometimes the old Ideas are the best doesnt it?
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I got all excited and then I read...
This does not work on wet or clay soil.
>:( blooming clay again. grr.
I shall have to stick with my large plastic box with holes drilled in the bottom and my strong and patient hubby!
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When would you want to riddle soil? Is digging it over not enough?
Ten x
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When the soil is so bad not even a mattock will break through it and you have to pay for a man with a digger to break up the ground. Then hopefully you can sort out the whear from the chaff ;)
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When the soil is full of broken glass, scrap metal and weed roots like hawsers then you need to riddle it.
And for Aquilegia, if your soil will go through a large box with holes in it, then it would go through this sieve.
Richard I never claimed it was original, only most people do not have access to old books (or old gardeners).
And finally my soil is a fine silt, in places and boulder clay of the worst kind in others, all of it went through and got mixed together.
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No i know you didnt clain to have invented it or anything Eric, i just thought i'd mention it thats all.
I find some of the older techniques interesting. Not that i'd like to have to use some of them mind. We have progressed for the better in some areas of gardening i think.
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I constructed a similar contraption 50 years ago, using an angle-iron bed frame, with its original diamond mesh wires covered with chicken wire. After wearing out a roll of chicken wire I substituted small gauge reinforcing mesh, which lasted for several years. In the end I equipped it with two wheels from worn out wheelbarrows and now use it as a garden truck.
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Hmm well my soil is heavy wet clay full of "roots like hawsers" I don't think it will go through a riddle - did find one in the shed we pulled down though so might give it a go if it gets a bit drier.
Ten x
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While we are on the subject folks, can anyone give me a really good reason for riddling soil? Apart from getting rid of roots and rubbish?
In many soils stones can be beneficial, as they retain moisture and open up the soil structure (at least chalk and flint stones do).
Any other good reasons you can think of?
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I only riddle the soil for the geenhouse which i grow carrots in, this stops them from forking. The soil in the lottie just gets manure and turned over, raked and that's it ;D .
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Stones certainly are NOT beneficial when they are polished pebbles and represent more than 10% of the soil volume (in my garden they originally represented over 50%). Apart from reducing the proportion of productive soil available, they also cause carrots and parsnips to fork, make the preparation of a fine tilth seed bed virtually impossible, and make both digging and hoeing a difficult business.
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Yes hugh i know too many is not good. I have battled for years to to grow carrot on my soil without sucess, so i do know the downsides of stones in the soil. That and trying to dig planting holes and hiting large lumps of flint instead of soil!
I was merely observing that on some soils a FEW stones can help keep the soil structure open.
I have in the past tried replacing areas of stony soil with riddled material, and while it looked nice, the structure didnt last. It soon became more compacted and drier than areas where stones had not been removed. This said i am considering riddled soil in a last ditch atempt to grow carrots sucessfully.
Perhaps stones are a good case in favour of NO DIG. after all. I have found where I do not have to regularly dig the stones sunk gradualy down through the soil leaving the top layers relatively stone free. This seems to have been the case in my raised veg beds where digging is in fact minimal.
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Richard,While I appreciate that yes, a few stones do keep the soil structure open,as i posted earlier, my soil is almost undigable it is so solid with stones. We had been discussing this in the chat room(yes we do occasionally chat about garden stuff :)) This posting from Mr Marsh was in answer to my rather stoney dilema. You may also notice on his posting that he suggests using 1/2 inch chicken wire, I am sure that some stones will get through that.
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And, of course, Mimi. there is absolutely no way whatever that putting soil through a 3/4 inch riddle will damage the crumb structure of the soil, neither will the removal of excess stones.
The crumb structure of soil is essentially a physical phenomenon associated with the physical properties of atoms and molecules and depends on the presence of the electrolitical attraction by which fine particles of matter and water can be so associated with one another as to form colloids in which the water and soilds do not readily part with each other. These colloids, in their turn, adhere to each other to form the soil `crumbs` which are essential to fertility. Calcium will increase the electrolitic attraction between particles in most soils. Other elements and substances - notably those derived from nitrogenous based proteins of fibrous tissue of plants or animals will increase the number of colloid forming particles to a marked degree. However, stones, whether they be pebbles, flints, lumps of granite or whatever play absolutely no part in this.
Stones do, as Richard has noticed, frequently retain a thin film of moisture on their undersides in hot dry weather, but this does not contribute in any way to crumb structure although a sufficient quantity will help retain some moisture in poor dry soils. If you remove the stones from poor dry soil, you will inevitably end up with drier soil, as Richard obviously did, but the crumb structure will remain the same, and if it was poor afterwards, then it was clearly poor beforehand, in which case the blindingly obvious answer is not to keep the stones for their dubious minor benefits, but to increase the colloidal properties of the soil by the addition of humus forming substances.
I hope this satisifies any doubts that may have been raised by Richard`s comments.
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Is there no end to your talents Hugh? :D
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Cor hugh, you's sexy when you instruct! ::)
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An interesting alternative design to those suggested is one that I have seen on Time Team archeological digs on Channel 4, where, if my memory serves me, the riddle is suspended on ropes. The objective here is to retrieve the flint stone tools, or shards of pottery, and to get rid of the soil !
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Why get rid of the stones? Geoff Hamilton (God bless him) used to leave them in, he said they warmed up the soil at night.
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I need to get rid of the stones once I have broken the surface 10" or so with the digger. As mentioned before, my allotment is unusable, in its present state of total impaction. Believe me it has to be seen to be believed. It is almost as if the whole area has had a 'wacker plate' dragged over and over it. I dont have the time or the energy to compete with it. So once the crust is cracked as it where,that is when I need to get rid of the rocks, stones, asphalt and various other nasties in there. Just hope at the end there IS some soil left to use. ;D
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With regards to the type of riddle used in Archaeology, the problem is that you have to lift the soil into the riddle and then empty out the riddle when the soil had gone through. Believe me, I have done it both ways and a suspended riddle is slower and more hard work.
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Depends Eric, on how much weight you've got to lose. I'm 10 to 12 kgs over at the moment and looking forward to when I'm allowed to start digging again. Then perhaps my trousers won't cut me in 'alf !!!
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Well, both daughterand I lost a stone apiece riddling the soil mounds we had here. But naturally when we stopped we both put the weight back on. So hopefully you will do better than we did. :)
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A few years ago I made a similar riddle to the one mentioned. My straining 'cross wires' were old wire coat hangers. The legs were only short stumps which, when put on the top of the wheel barrow simply stopped it sliding off. The natural slope on the barrow gave me the fall.
I riddled tons of terrible soil in a new plot with it. I ended up with a mountain of clay embedded with weeds which I stacked at the bottom of the garden and covered with plastic. I left it for 2 seasons and worked my way through riddling it! Big job, but I rescued 90 of reasonable soil from what whould other wise be lost.
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Cor.!
If you do want to try using an archaeological type riddle, the one we made was from the sides of an old drawer, 6 ins deep, about 3 feet by 18 inches with a 1 inch mesh wire base. We hung it from a childs swing using towing rope. Have fun!
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Seems to me the best reason for riddling soil is to remove rubbish and extract usable soil (which would otherwise be dumped with the rubbish). Never mind the stones, I have saved loads of soil over the years this way.
I have also been known to use it to EXTRACT the stones from the soil for a purpose. Either to use the stone as hardcore or to clean up gravel (which after a time gets soil mixed into it). ;D
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get a shopping trolley full of soil and fix bag under it and tie to back of car and whizz down the road, with the state of our roads it would sieve the clay and break the stones up!!!!!!!!!!!!
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;) ;) Hey peter watch out!! You've got some competition here as Chief Inventor on A4a.
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Why riddle?
Part of my plot has been used (repeatedly I should think) as a bonfire site. It's got lumps of half-burnt, half-melted plastic, charred stubs of bamboo canes, sticks, half-bricks, and mile upon mile of polysummat baler string which clogs and chokes the rotovator.
How to riddle?
Since I'm only trying to get the worst out, I use an old supermarket basket. Fill it up, and twirl it over the area you have just dug out.
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If you read the whole of this thread you will see a very good discussion on the whys and wherefores of riddling soil. The original posting was in response to a request for an easy(ish) method of quickly(ish) removing a large amount of very unwelcome material from an area which had been used as a builders storage area.
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Can I just say that I am not in the least bothered if I should or should not riddle. Also not bothered if anyone else does or doesnt. I want to, so that I have soil that I can get a shovel into without having to be reduced to using a mattock everytime I wish to plant something.. The patent Marsh Riddle has been a god send to me. So each to their own.
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Small scale riddling
Most of my back garden is grass, 95%. On the little bit of open ground that I have, I recycled the grill from one of those diy barbeque boxes and nailed it to four bits of timber (old skirting board). Then I put a shovelful in at a time and took out any stones or lumpy soil. There has been some landscaping after building work near my house recently so I stole a couple of bags of topsoil stealthily at night. I riddled it when adding to what I've got.
good luck
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I've never riddled soil: there is just too much of it!
I always riddle my compost, and put the lumps back onto the heap.
The chicken wire frame sounds good and I'll try it.
In Istanbul I watched workmen riddling sand and cement. They had a large riddle on two wooden legs at waist level, and it was easy to rock back and forth to move the stuff about and to tip the lumps off. Suspending from ropes would achieve the same thing.
My soil was awful clay. Lots of compost and lots of roots works wonders over several years: never leave the soil with nothing growing in it.
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With some experience, I'll go with Eric's solution.
Experience? This is a typical dig in the Cotswolds!!
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So when you riddle you're not after soil but dry stone walling then !
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Home made large riddle. Mesh is about 3/4 inch by 1 1/2 inches with a wooden frome made to fit. It's on legs that I use on the ground or in this case, on a wheelbarrow where it has a slight slope. I did the entire plot with it when I first moved in.
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Why can't I see your pictures today Ken :'( ???
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I'll try and re-post it....getting a bit fed-up with loading pics and having them go goo-goo on me!(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/Kenkew/043RiddleMar04.jpg)
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Got it, it looks great, but how do you use it? not by shakin the handles of the wheel barrow ??? presumably you use it like a cheese grater ??? quite unique, you are quite innovative, I loved the boot scraper idea, almost to the point where I wanted to break a fork ;D
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Nah! I fill it up with soil and run round and round the plot singing, 'Hi-Ho-Hi-Ho, pick up riddle and go, With a big strong back, And a lot of knack, I get...... the goods..... Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho!
I got a spare broken fork I picked up at a jumble sale. Gonna make a birthday pressy for someone.
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;D Tee hee your Mad ;D
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Our local organic co-operative (not the Co-op! - tee hee) use a sieve swing to cope with sieving large amounts of soil. They've got a web site but no swing in sight. I've been to a talk by the group who mentioned it. I suppose if I want to see it for myself I'm going to have to go along to one of their sessions.
I've googled but come up with nought :( Not that I'll be sieving anytime soon (what, wi my back?)
My chiro gave me back strengthening exercises yesterday so I'll soon be back in business on my lotty. Hopefully. He;s told me to avoid cleaning windows. Oh dear what a shame ;D
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Since it was in response to a plea from Mimi that I originally posted about my method of sieving, I will repeat what I said then. I made a swing sieve (and I still have it, if anyone wants to collect it). For small amounts of soil or large numbers of operaters, it works. BUT for large amount of sieving (I did over 20 tonnes(that is a pile about 2 metres high, 2 metres wide and 5 metres long)),to be done in a short time you really do need something bigger and easier. I really could not fancy doing more than a small amount at a time in Kens riddle.
Only other point to make is that perhaps Mimi and I should have made it clear that we were not talking about "soil" as in good for growing stuff, we were cleaning up material which most people would have put in a skip and replaced with expensive bought in topsoil.
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Horses for courses, folks.
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Exactly Ken, exactly! Funny, I have just found behind the compost heap the original sieve I made before I realised just hpw much material there was. Looks a bit like yours, but far less well constructed. ;D
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The wood I might have to replace, the mesh came from the inside of a commercial kitchen oven which should last for just about ever.
Big riddles that need more than one person to handle must be a nightmare to anyone considering his days work!