On Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:13:19 +0000, Spider wrote:

On 20/02/2012 08:50, Jake wrote:
I use one of these http://tinyurl.com/82gelt2 although I can't believe
the price and probably wouldn't buy one now (I paid around £15 when I
bought mine many years ago).


Jake, I've often looked at those green rotary jobs and wondered how good
they were. One of my compost sieving problems is how to extract my
lovely red worms from the good sieved compost. Usually, I have to leave
a few stragglers in with the compost as I scatter it. How do you avoid
crushing worms with that rotary arm .. or are you just not as precious
as me about our wriggly friends? Also, how does that gadget cope with
the occasional stone or nugget of brick that inevitably finds its way
into the compost bin?

It's down to technique I suppose. Depends on what I'm sieving:

- bought compost - I fill it up from the bag and sieve the lot nicely
in about 30 secs. No worms to worry about. It's ok for multi-purpose
but if you use one of the types that contain more substantial bits
(such as Westland's West+) it'll just remove them so no point using
it.

- anything else gets added in bits until I've got about a 3" deep pile
in the gizmo. Worms are no problem as easily seen and removed as I'm
adding. I use dalek type composters and by the time I remove stuff
from the bottom of those there are few worms left as they always like
to go up in the world to the fresher stuff. If I'm sieving soil I'm
more likely to halve a worm with the spade than in the gizmo. It
probably takes longer to empty out what isn't going to go through the
mesh than to get a load through it. It is quick to use.

I just keep filling it until I reach a point where stuff that's not
going through the sieve gets a bit much when it's tipped out either
back into the compost dalek, onto ground or into a bag if I want to
get rid of some stony bits. Any stone up to the size of a golf ball
will be no problem - the rotor bits are round so anything that won't
go through the sieve under them simply rolls over them or gets pushed
around a bit.

It's great for producing a fine tilth for a seed bed. Fraction of the
time it would take to fork over my clay soil.

It's sturdy and, after God knows how many years of heavy use there's
not even a chip in the powder coating. But as I've said, I don't know
if I'd pay over £40 for one today.

Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling happily from the dryer end of Swansea Bay.

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