The Manic Gardener

Shake or be shaken: see the big screen

April 3, 2009 by The Manic Gardener

This one's for James Alexander-Sinclair (Blogging from Blackpitts Garden) who was apparently inspired by the automatic compost screeners featured in my "Shake yo' compost screen" post earlier this week. But he wants something "bigger and better," he says. His brain on fire, he is all pumped up to turn his many talents to the question of large-scale screening.

Well, James, in support of your efforts, I decided to share with you these possibilities.

This one's quite cute, and will fit in the back of your pick-up. However, since it has no moving parts, it's not entirely clear how the dirt you dump on top is supposed to make it through the screen (especially a screen at that angle), but I'm sure you'll figure something out: maybe instead of shaking, you can take up jumping. Of course, you can always buy the "Optional Vibrator Package" for a mere $1,400.

Portable Soil Screener. Portable as in slip it into your back pocket? The site has a video of it in action. If you have had a very dull day, check it out.

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Posted in Nearly Total Nonsense

Minnesota Spring: GBMD, approximately

April 1, 2009 by The Manic Gardener

I thought it was still Monday when I set out to transcribe this; I'd had three hours' sleep Sunday night and none Tuesay night, and I'm a bit addled. (I slept 18 hours last night, a personal best.) The occasion for this sleepless extravaganza was the last, mad push to finish, at last, the compost article, which I sent out yesterday. Afterwards I felt rather like a somewhat limp helium balloo that might just drift away over the landscape.

Anyway, I thought it was Monday, but it wasn't, so this isn't really a Garden Blogger's Muse Day contribution. It's even less of one than it should be, because I forgot to post it yesterday.

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Posted in Poetry

Shake yo’ compost screen

March 29, 2009 by The Manic Gardener

As part of my almost criminally long article on composting (125 pages and counting) I have been looking at compost screens and sifters. Mine is something my husband knocked together in a few minutes—a wooden frame reinforced at the corners fitted with ½” hardware cloth (read: wire mesh). It’s big enough to set down on the big new wheelbarrow I got last summer. I just shovel finished compost onto it and shove it around with my hands; what doesn’t go through goes back into the bin.

It never occurred to me that some people shook theirs–it sounds like way too much work– until I ran into that guy in the photograph above. But apparently he saw the error of his ways, and found the plans for a two-part sifter where the screen rides on top of a secure frame. Directions for building it are available here, on the Glendale, California website.

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Posted in Composting, Tools of the Trade

Shake yo' compost screen

March 29, 2009 by The Manic Gardener

As part of my almost criminally long article on composting (125 pages and counting) I have been looking at compost screens and sifters. Mine is something my husband knocked together in a few minutes—a wooden frame reinforced at the corners fitted with ½” hardware cloth (read: wire mesh). It's big enough to set down on the big new wheelbarrow I got last summer. I just shovel finished compost onto it and shove it around with my hands; what doesn't go through goes back into the bin.

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Posted in Composting, Tools of the Trade

Plant Power: Phytoremediation (Arsenic in soil, Part III)

March 22, 2009 by The Manic Gardener

Chinese brake fern (Pteris vittata L.) Source: Brake fern remediation

Today I get to write about one of my absolute favorite gardening topics, and for once I’m not being ironic. Phytoremediation isn’t going to make it onto most people’s gardening hit lists, and it’s not a fad that’s going to take the nation’s gardens by storm the way a new rose or hellebore might. But for me it’s proof positive of the extraordinary power of plants; it’s hope in a polluted world; it’s a spot of green in the brownfields of industry; it’s good sense in the midst of madness.