ᐅ Sift topsoil yourself or have it delivered? Efficient screening methods?

Hello everyone,

Although it will still be some time before we need to spread the topsoil on our plot, we are already thinking about it in advance.

We still have a large pile of topsoil from the excavation. How did you handle this? Did you spread the topsoil again after the house was completed without further processing, or did you sift all of it? I guess it depends on how many stones are in it. But there can also be weeds and other debris mixed in. Or did you have new topsoil delivered by truck? Or did you use efficient mixing machines to sift the topsoil? A future neighbor spent days, if not weeks, sifting his topsoil. He had a rotating screening drum, but still had to shovel the topsoil in manually.

Thanks

So, we didn’t screen anything. We simply spread the topsoil using a wheelbarrow, shovel, and rake, and manually removed larger components like stones, roots, etc. I’m not sure how many stones are in your pile of soil, but usually, topsoil isn’t full of stones.

Best regards
Sabine

Stones are good for drainage! So unless they are roughly fist-sized and excessively abundant, I wouldn’t remove them.

You usually can’t get rid of all the weeds anyway. Since the seeds come from above, I would only sort out large root pieces. However, if you’re dealing with soil for the entire garden, meaning tens or even hundreds of cubic meters, I wouldn’t do any cleaning.

That will become clear later during gardening work.

Best regards in short

Thank you very much for the information. I have since learned that the neighbor had problems with ground settlement after sieving all the topsoil. The topsoil settled too much. Often, after spreading the topsoil, it is also tilled, which allows for the removal of larger stones and similar debris.