Uses for stone and rock from digging.

Something I can't avoid when working the soil are rocks.

Big rocks, little rocks, red rocks, blue rocks, flat rocks, and round rocks! We have boulders and we have pebbles. Some days it feels like the ground is more rock than dirt!

Anyway, what do you do with all of your rocks?

I have created a system for my homestead due to the small size. I made a sieve 2"x3" out of scrap 2x4s and 1/4 galvanized mesh I had leftover from the chicken run. I'll scoop the dirt and pour it into the mesh. I'll filter out the rocks/weeds that way, anything small that falls through is fine for me.

Small rocks get put near the base of the foundation out to the roof drip line. I don't have gutters and this seems to help keep the ground from getting overly beat up. It also conveniently spaces my mulch away from my house and gives a nice little delineation.  

Large rocks get added to my never-ending rock wall project. My front two gardens are 'complete' and established but I have started in the back gardens to separate the lawn from the gardens. It also holds back the mulch as well from sliding into the lawn.

What do you do with stone?

I mostly don't have large rocks and for now, the rule is that we toss them at the base of the nearest "keeper" tree. Maybe they're providing mulch services in the meantime and they'll be easy to find if we find a use for them.

And for future crosslinking purposes, here's a similar thread I started a couple years ago (that you've already seen).

Hi Tim;
It looks like you're doing a fine job of dealing with your rocks.
Do you have field fences around your property?
One great use for excess stone is to build a cage around corner posts (Or any post).
Toss any extra stone in the cage to fill it up, this will help your fences stand straight and true.
It also helps with livestock (cattle) leaning against the fence to eat that good grass that grows on the other side...
Or as you are in the N.E. perhaps continue the hundreds of years of tradition of placing stacked stone walls around your fields...
What's that Tim? You do not have any fields???  No Cattle??? A nice little home in suburbia with a postage-stamp yard, and you have a cat???
Ha Ha, around here, I just make a pile out of the way, you never know when you might want a certain size or shape rock.

I'm right on the border of New England proper which means dry stack stone fences for miles!

I actually am inspired to make them because of all the ones that I see. I however don't have field to plow up tons of stones so I am limited to my small footprint and nearby.

Fun fact, my family has hunted the same public land for years that is a mountain covered in trees in the modern era. It contains dozens upon dozens of 'plots' delineated by stone fences from a far ago time. If I have my timing correct, I believe a good chunk of them came from Merino wool craze in the 1830's that spread out from Vermont.  

Dear hubby dumps them in the pond.

The pond will not hold water except after a torrential rainstorm otherwise it is just a giant hole in the ground.

I like the looks of your flowerbed.

I made some though dear hubby picked up all the rocks and threw them in the pond.

I recommend looking up on youtube Hawaiian/Polynesian rock stacking techniques. The way they do it takes more rocks but makes solid formations that have lasted hundreds of years through many tropical storms and a few hurricanes here and there. I worked a job where they were making their own terrace walls from all the rocks in the land there, the walls were falling down so that's how I came to research and rebuild them solid.  The way they talk about the rocks makes gives a nice perspective that makes working with them funner as well.

Proper (galvanized, quality) gabion cages. I use them for all kinds of things in my extremely rocky terrain.

I recently cleared a large area for an orchard and put up probably ~50' of 5'x3'x2' cages. I use them for wind breaks and to create landscape boundaries.

George Booth wrote:I recommend looking up on youtube Hawaiian/Polynesian rock stacking techniques. The way they do it takes more rocks but makes solid formations that have lasted hundreds of years through many tropical storms and a few hurricanes here and there. I worked a job where they were making their own terrace walls from all the rocks in the land there, the walls were falling down so that's how I came to research and rebuild them solid.  The way they talk about the rocks makes gives a nice perspective that makes working with them funner as well.

Thank you for this lead.

source

Also called uhau humu pōhaku. I'm amazed what they can do with quite rounded stones. The above link appears to give some working chants too.

In case anyone doesn't understand from the image or doesn't watch any videos explaining it. One of the most important aspects can be seen in the image where if you look at what would be the "face" of the wall they never use the largest "face" of the rocks they are stacking, rather the opposite as that's what gives the walls so much structure.

One thing that someone showed me a while ago that I was doing wrong is that if you are building a retaining wall you want the top layer to be big rocks, not little ones. Their weight holds the wall together and down.