E Dowe

Thank you Barbara, you've given me a lot to think about. I appreciate that very much. The longer the post the better. Thank you for all that detail.

Unfortunately tilling is a big part of the biointensive method that I am learning about. But you have made me interested to learn other methods. I will now be researching permaculture in the following years after I have attempted the Biointensive method for at least a couple of years. I'm curious what all the differences are. I'm interested in a self sustaining organic garden mostly, but the biointensive method is said to create more of a yeild which is the reason for the double digging or really digging the first foot and loosening the second foot.

I finally got the wood and 1/2 inch mesh and will be assembling the sifter by the weekend.

Thank you everybody once again!

Although if anyone else has anything to add, I will be checking back here.

r ranson, thank you! It helps to have a general rock size to follow. I also agree with you that I wouldn't be sifting the soil either, but since I already dug it out and there is so much of it, I want to sift to make sure I get out the bigger rocks that I missed and I just thought why not sift it with the correct size mesh while I'm at it. But I was also thinking the further down the less it is useful. Rocks reappear? interesting. I assume not the huge ones though.

Your next post has a good amount of information that I was looking for. Thank you so much! Yes I get a good amount of rain. I am in Montreal Quebec in Canada. Drainage looks like it will be important which is another reason to get all those big rocks out. There is just so much soil I dug out which I have to go through to check for rocks that I am going to make a 2 foot by 3 foot frame for what I now have decided will be a 1/2 inch mesh to sift everything since I can't imaging going through it by hand faster than sifting it. I guess I can just dump some smaller rocks back into the soil if it looks like it is needed after finding the bigger rocks with the siv.

Christopher, yes it is a lot of work, but the huge rocks go all the way down and they are everywhere, there isn't one spot I can get through with a spading fork after the first 8-10 inches. It's just a bunch of huge and medium rocks filled with soil. I can't manage to do a double dig at all unless I do this. If I was just doing a normal one foot dig I would be able to do as you suggest. As I said in my last post, the back yard was filled with huge rocks when the house was built (1962) and then covered with soil. Thanks for the 1/2 inch confirmation.

Thank you Timothy, that helps! Are you doing the Biointesive method as well?

I would also like to know more details if anyone has anything to add such as if it wouldn't be as good to use a 1/4 inch mesh compared to the 1/2 inch mesh. Or maybe someone wants to just post a link to something that I can read which may enlighten me.

To answer your question I am just learning, so I don't understand what soil should be like other than how it should be not too sandy and not too clay like. But it looks good and feels like a good texture in the hand and is a nice dark color. It does seem to drain water slowly from when I watered it to prepare for a double dig, but that could be the big rocks. About a foot and a half deep it gets very clay like and a light brown color and very compacted, but it still breaks up into soil after digging it out. Other than the large amount of very big rocks and medium rocks, there is just a normal amount of smaller rocks. My uncle says that when my grandfather built the house, they dumped a lot of big rocks in the back yard and covered it with soil.

The backyard just had the grass replaced and those people put some better soil in the garden section, than what they put under the grass, but probably only 6 inches deep. It still looks just as good for that foot and a half.

Hi everyone, this is my first post. I am new to gardening.

I have been reading the book "How to grow more vegetables by John Jeavons", and I have started digging what will be a 33 feet long 3 feet wide portion of the backyard. (3 feet wide is all I was allowed to use, so it will have to do.)

Unfortunately there are very big rocks which have bent the tines of my spading fork during attempting to double dig. The spading fork is completely destroyed. I couldn't even loosen the soil the first foot down. So I have started to do a one time dig to remove all the soil a full 2 feet down in order to get all the huge rocks out so it will be easy in the future to do double digs, and it will also be easy on a new spading fork. I have finished digging 2 feet down in a 3 feet by 3 feet section and I have 10 more of those to go.

The problem I am having is that I want to sift the soil as I put it back, and I have tried to find some info on the internet about what size mesh to use, but most of the info I find is for just the topsoil or compost. I also can't find anything in the book I mentioned about sifting rocks from soil, let alone 2 feet down. The book only mentions sifting compost. I am running out of time and I need some help to understand what size mesh to use to sift this soil.

I have been looking at 1/2 inch and 1/4 inch hardware cloth. At first I thought I should take out all the stones. But now after reading a bit, I see that stones can be benificial to the soil structure, at least smaller stones to allow the soil not to compact too easily and to have better drainage.

I don't know what size stones I would need to leave in the soil to have a good soil structure. Before I found out that I shouldn't be taking out all the stones I was thinking that 1/2 inch mesh looked too big to me, and I was going to go with 1/4 inch, but now I don't know what would be best for the soil structure. I am only begining to learn about soil structure and I don't want to do anything to damage that 2 feet down.

I would very much appreciate if someone could explain what size mesh I should use to sift the soil before filling the hole to keep only the stones that are necessary for the best soil sturcture and to remove everything else, and also considering I have dug out all the soil 2 feet down if that makes any difference (should it all be the same soil structure the full 2 feet down?). It is a lot of work to dig 2 feet down to remove all those big rocks and I want get the correct amount of sifting done so I feel very good about all the work I will be doing.