"less than a pickup truck load" was intended to convey the max
quantity/year... all sizes organic combined... I know, it was a long post

Can you provide make/model of hand grinder for reference? Or maybe a pointer
to something similar that could be had new or used...

The mini-nuggets look to be better quality, by far, with almost no wood. I
could see using them and a chipper/grinder so I could net a high usable
yield out of my sieving... current yield with pine bark is low

Best,
/jhd

"Jim Lewis" wrote in message
news:004d01c45ee9$0127e840$38112cc7@pavilion...
Hey all,

I'm spending inordinate amounts of time sieving my organic
material and
could use some encouraging words regarding a) better sources,
b) better
materials, c) better techniques, d) better tools. Currently I'm
using pine
bark, by the bag from lowes/home despot. Typically I double
screen into 2 or
3 sizes. Too much wood parts to pull out and too little yield
for the effort
expended. blah, blah, blah.

You don't indicate how much soil you need to make each year, but
I'll tell you what _I_ have started to do -- FWIW.

I buy my organic component (pine bark NUGGETS) from Lowes or Home
Depot in spring of year 1. I empty the two bags into two large
growing boxes that sit out exposed to the Florida elements. In
the winter of year 1, I bury all of my smallest trees (40 or 50
trees under 6 inches until this disastrous spring) in the boxes
of bark nuggets and just leave them there for the winter,
exposed to rain, freeze-thaw, etc. (If you don't need it for
winter protection, just leave it out in the elements for a year.)

In the EARLY spring of year 2 after I've rescued and repotted all
of the tiny trees, I start grinding up the now-pretty-rotten pine
bark nuggets -- I have a hand-cranked grinder originally made to
grind up stuff for compost that breaks the nuggets down to a
smaller (and sometimes even useful) size. The larger parts of
this smaller stuff then goes into an old and nearly worn out food
processor and is ground to flake size and then screened (lots of
powder) and added to the bonsai soil -- mostly turface.

I make 3-4 paint buckets of soil every year. This process takes
a year and 2 days. ;-) That's not too much time, eh?

Fresh pine bark nuggets are simply too hard to break up -- and as
you say the shredded stuff is 40% wood chips which you do NOT
want in your soil.

To someone else who responded: That Miracle Grow soil is too
fine for even my tiny trees! And too costly for as much soil as
I make.

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Only where
people have learned to appreciate and cherish the landscape and
its living cover will they treat it with the care and respect it
should have - Paul Bigelow Sears.


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