I received this as a gift and I had absolutely no idea what it was!! Once I discovered what it could do in the garden, I was sold. A device like this can make working through the compost pile a breeze!
Check your local garden centre or big box store as there are several manufacturers making these types of machines.
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Hello everybody and welcome to “Garden Well Eat Well”.
Today’s a little different. I have a new tool that I’ve never used before and I’m going to try it out in the garden for the very first time. Just looking at it, you may not realize what exactly this is or what it can do but I’ll teach you all about it.
This is my channel where I show you all sorts of great gardening methods and useful tips so you can grow and prepare good nutritious food for you and your family.
So back in December, I received this as a Christmas gift from my family. My first impression was it was some type of mobile garbage can. It had a couple of wheels on it with a deep drum, but what in the world was this motor for?
When I finally did open up the manual, it dawned on me what a great tool this could be in the garden.
So let’s take a closer look at it. The drum is being held down by a chain so we we just have to release it. And when we press that switch, the motor should turn on and start rotating this cylinder around.
You can also see there’s a metal mesh on the inside covering all these holes.
Let’s move it over to where it’s meant to be used….next to our compost pile. We’re going to take this compost and feed it through the machine because….
…this is a Compost Sifter (or compost screener)
The compost has been cooking for about six or seven months. I’ve turned it over a few times back
in March and April but it’s ready to be used in the garden now. We’ll shovel it into one end.
The good stuff for the plants will fall down here in the middle. And anything that is too big or clumped up will fall out the other end. I’ll use my wheelbarrow to collect the compost that we can’t use just yet.
I also spent a little time to angle it down slightly. Not too steep so that everything ends up in the wheel barrow, but a little pitch so the compost will turn for a few seconds inside.
After firing it up, there is a little noise but it really isn’t that loud. So with our first shovelful, all the good stuff we want will fall below. The larger pieces stay inside to continue tumbling a bit until most of them are broken up. Whatever the machine can’t process will simply fall out the end.
You probably want to do this only when the compost is reasonably dry or only slightly moist.
If it’s too wet, you’re just going to get a big sloppy mess with horrible results.
You also have to watch that you don’t feed it too fast. If you overload it, most of it will just end up in the wheelbarrow instead of being sifted out.
I’ll collect the debris and dump it over at my other compost pile. It’ll continue to break down further and I can use it later this year. A canvas bag also came with it. It’s meant to snap on the end to collect the debris, but I chose not to use it.
But the machine certainly does work. It’s giving me some excellent compost. It’s light and airy…very usable. This would be great for repotting any of your outdoor plants. I would say it’s even fine enough to use to pot up your seedlings before you transplant them into the garden. You can check out my video on doing just that. If you really want to get an early jump on the season with your tomatoes, this is something I highly recommend doing. Check out my channel on this.
Being so fertile and easily workable, this compost is perfect to spread around the plants anywhere in your garden. You can layer it between them or just work it in a bit. Whatever way you choose to do it, when it rains or when you water, it will carry the nutrients down to the roots and the plants will get a huge fertility boost.
Although this machine is great and it makes easy work of the pile, the next question though is where to store it? Well that’s a real drawback, being so large. It takes up a lot of room in the garage or your shed and it’s a big trade-off since you might only be using it a handful of times during the year. I’m sure very few gardeners actually have this machine. Personally, I would never think about buying this for myself, but I am happy that I have it now.
Before, whenever I need some nice uniform compost without any debris or clumps, I would just use my trusty hand sifter. It was a lot of work but it got the job done. Just as long as you didn’t have to make too much of it. It was quite a workout.
So if you have a gardener in your life that already has everything and you’re stuck looking for that special gift, this could be the one!
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