On Mon, 21 May 2007 22:21:18 +0100, "Trefor Jones"
wrote:

I'm thinking of buying a rotary soil sieve from Coopers of Storford to speed
up the my compost sieveing. Has anybody any experience of these ? Are they
robust enough for about 1 m3 of compost a year? Any comments appreciated.
Trefor


In Central Europe the sieving was done by simply throwing compost, etc
against an appropriate mesh stretched on a frame. Say 2'6" wide x 3'
tall. Propped at an angle, say 30 degrees from vertical, or less. The
angle will also affect the size of particles falling through the
sieve. The material rolls down the sieve by gravity, separating into
two heaps.

At present I get my back aching annually - I use a hand held and hand
shaken circular plastic sieve. I am thinking somehow to make it
vibrate by attaching a recycled (partially busted) orbital sander to
it. Only an idea at this stage!

I garden in N Staffs., producing about 2 m3 compost a year and sieving
about a half of it, mainly for ring culture of tomatos & general
potting.