manually moving rock

The property we bought a couple years ago has many 'planter' areas filled with rock.  The rock is about 2-3" size and about 6" deep in most of these areas, poured over a weed barrier that is now rather deteriorated.  It took me about 2 hours to clear a 2'x2' section.  I'm pulling the rocks out with a hand 'claw' type tool into a bucket and dumping that into a wheel barrow.

I'm 60+ and don't have the endurance I used to have.  I can do this, but thought I'd ask if anyone has a better way to get all this rock removed.

I'm 74. Go slow, and you always go. Go fast, and you won't last.

It's only February. Plenty of time before Spring.

Bonnie Kuhlman wrote:The property we bought a couple years ago has many 'planter' areas filled with rock.  The rock is about 2-3" size and about 6" deep in most of these areas, poured over a weed barrier that is now rather deteriorated.  It took me about 2 hours to clear a 2'x2' section.  I'm pulling the rocks out with a hand 'claw' type tool into a bucket and dumping that into a wheel barrow.

I'm 60+ and don't have the endurance I used to have.  I can do this, but thought I'd ask if anyone has a better way to get all this rock removed.

Hire teenagers. They're inefficient but they heal faster. If you pay them a reasonable fee plus cookies/pizza, they will make themselves available for more grunt work jobs.

Edit: To clarify, don't pay hourly. A reasonable flat fee for the job.

I can not think of a faster way than to hand pick unfortunately. That size and depth makes it not easy I'm sure!

I do second trying to enlist a helper or two if possible. Many hands make light work. Otherwise just keep a steady pace and it will be done before you know it.

A picture would be really helpful, as I'm not sure my solution would fit with exactly what the situation is.

However,  I have a simple wooden frame made of 2x4's with the 2x4's sticking out sort of like an "H" shape except two bars across, designed to fit over a wheel barrow. The center part is covered on the bottom with 1/2" hardware cloth - that's the square wire material that sometimes has other names depending on where you live.

So if I'm picturing the beds correctly, I'd use a garden fork to loosen the rocky stuff if it's settled into a mass, then use a shovel to put shovel-fulls into the shallow frame and the theory is that the dirt will fall through and the rocks will stay in the frame and can be dumped into buckets. Reality usually means that you have to rub the material around to get it to separate, but at least you're no longer doing so on your hands and knees.

If the main issue is that the rocks have settled into a solid mass, trying just the garden fork and not using the frame, may still be helpful. You may have to clear a strip in the center wide enough to get the fork in to lift from under the rocks.

If I've got the whole problem wrong, post pictures and maybe we can do better?

Do you actually want the rock for another purpose? If you just want it gone, you could advertise free rock -- you dig -- must be removed by end of week.

Jay, I have a frame like you described.  I use it for sifting soil for seed starting.  

I'm not too concerned with the amount of dirt I'll lose from the rock beds.  I'm working on another technique of raking the rock into piles.  Then maybe I can use a shovel instead of a pulling them into a bucket with a hand claw.

I'm trying to attach a pic.  Behind the house (not visible in the pic), is a circular area about 10' diameter.  There are rocks all along the back and front of the house.  You can see a small section in front of the tree top right of pic.  

I'm sure the previous owners thought rock was a low maintenance idea, but they probably also sprayed it with poisons.  I'd rather put down layers of paper, cardboard, and mulch.  Mulch is much easier to move than rock.

Many people somehow got the impression that "rock" and "gravel" was low maintenance. I agree that mulch is lower, or similar maintenance, but at least it turns into soil, so you and your plants get something out of the work involved.

In some ecosystems, rock mulch can help with water retention, but I always thought that requires larger rocks than the ones in the picture.