Need boneyard organization tips

I’ve been burning brush and want to save the ash. Is a covered plastic tub my best bet?

I also want to save all the rocks and stones that I dig up as I’m planting things. I imagine smaller, wheeled totes would be better in order to facilitate moving the collection to whatever project I might need stones and rocks for.

How have you all organized your boneyards?

Vanessa Smoak wrote:I’ve been burning brush and want to save the ash. Is a covered plastic tub my best bet?

You will want to make sure that a) the ash is cold and b) the plastic is sunshine proof. My experience even here is that many plastics degrade annoyingly in sometimes a very short time. If it is a container designed for outside use, you're probably fine, but a large food container probably not.

I think wheeled totes would be amazing if you have a good supply of them. The number of times I've had to move piles of stones that I thought were out of the way! Soon I have to move a big pile of roofing slates because the line of the future drain has moved.

A plastic tub seems a good choice, if you're sure they're cooled. Same with glass. Storing in metal, I'd suggest considering length of storage and the reactivity of the metal. Remember folks used to make/ capture lye by filtering water through wood ash. Any vessel that can't handle lye is probably a poor choice for long term storage. I've also seen videos of people making a kind of cement with ash, so if you want it powdery, maybe consider storage that will keep moisture out.

I'd steer you more towards a galvanize trash can lifted off the ground with blocks or chunk of 4x4. Less chance of oopsie-doodle with a stray coal. Price isn't horrible.

Seems like the ashes storage has been covered well...

About the rocks, unless you are going to use them soon, I wouldn't bother with containers, and I certainly wouldn't spend any money to do so.

Rocks are heavy, and it's easy to fill any plastic container beyond what it is capable of supporting. Half-full in a five gallon pail is about all the handle will tolerate, you can put some more in if you lift by the rim.
Square-ish totes are less strong than round pails, and aren't really up to being lifted with such small, dense stuff in them. Wheeled totes are probably for floors, and aren't any use out in the garden.
All of them are going to fail over time in the sunlight, and you are right back to picking them up again. Without lids, they will collect water and debris, yuk.

Stones are probably the easiest thing to store, since they have so little to go wrong. A pile of rocks will be waiting and ready years from now.
Keeping small stones/gravel "clean" is about all you might want/need to do. Put a tarp under your pile to keep the stones and the soil separate, and cover with another tarp (or the other half of the tarp) to keep leaves and debris out.
Choose a good spot, maybe it's near your next project? otherwise put the rocks somewhere you are certain you won't need to move them unless they are being used!

If you have a tractor, and want to use pallets to store stones on for easy moving in the future, use two pallets. One pallet for the rocks, on top of another pallet on the ground. You have just about one year with a single pallet on the ground before it might not be able to be lifted. The double-stack saves the top pallet from sinking into the earth. The bottom pallet doesn't need to be perfect.

One of my projects for this year is to dismantle and gather stone and rocks from an old shade garden that now has full sun exposure.  I have an old sidewalk that originally went to the old house on this property and it's the perfect place to store the larger stones until I determine how I'll use them in the future.  I'm also planning to expand a brick and stone bed in my backyard and hauled more than an appropriate amount nearby to eliminate hauling them twice.  I also utilize some old wire milk crates and freezer baskets to contain the smaller stones.  Would be nearly impossible to move those baskets without a dolly of sorts but keeps them together.