How do you sieve your home made compost?

Richard168

Apologies if this has been asked before, probably a bit of a newbie question here.

I have a couple of compost heaps that look like the will be ready to be used soon. I have one of those green round sieves that I put it though to get any debris out before using. However there are two problems:

1. When you have a lot to sieve it takes a lot of time

2. the surface area is too small

Does anyone sieve over a wheelbarrow of larger box and if so do you use sheets of mesh? If so where do you get them from and how many gauges of mesh do you use.

Thanks

Richard

Lyn

 Never sieved compost, just chuck it on the ground in the autumn and by Spring  the worms will have chop it up and taken it down. 

Hostafan1

Ditto. I've never sieved mine either

Dovefromabove

Hostafan1 said:

Ditto. I've never sieved mine either

Same here. 

Hostafan1

TBH, I've never oiled my spade ( no tittering at the back ) or sharpened my secateurs or dipped them in disinfectant . Maybe I'm a lazy slut , or maybe I've just not got as much spare time on my hands?

Dovefromabove

I think there’s often a confusion about the term ‘compost’.  Home made compost is usually used as a mulch or soil conditioner ... it only needs to be sieved if it’s going to be combined with loam and grit etc to make potting compost. 

treehugger80

I sieve compost if i'm using it to pot plants up (especially small plants) I use a rotary one with a handle sat in a wheelbarrow, i can usually do it sitting down with a long handled shovel

Lizzie27

We only sieve compost sometimes, when we can see it's still got big lumps/twigs in it (i.e. not made properly/not cooked sufficiently). Fortunately I still have my late Dad's big old garden sieve (about 2 ft diameter) which fits nicely on the top of a plastic trub.

Hostafan1

my theory is , if it's not big enough to grab hold of, it's not big enough to worry about , so it can stay in there.

Busy-Lizzie

Never sieved my compost either.

How big is your sieve? I think it would have to be pretty big and doing it over a wheelbarrow sounds a good idea. That's if you really want to sieve it.

Topbird

The nearest I’ve ever got to sieving compost is chucking the odd large uncomposted twig back into one of the cooking bins and hoiking out the old plant labels and odd bits of plastic that always seem to end up in the bin.

Richard - If it’s just to be used as a mulch I really wouldn’t bother.