When it comes to making compost I'm not the complete purist - which is why I needed a compost sifter. Often my compost pile will incorporate a raft of objects that don't belong and have little, to no, chance of ever breaking down. Items such as; kids toys that are inadvertently picked up by the lawn mower, shards of plastic from numerous sources, nails and screws that got missed in the sawdust and a plethora of other bits and pieces.

Not only these but sticks that the electric chipper spat out instead of mulching, large blobs of paper that merged together instead of composting and hunks of manure that wouldn't separate, remain. The final compost heap, while perfect for the garden beds, can look unsightly and be hard to manipulate through the soil.

This is the reason I built my homemade compost screen and Sunday was the first day that I got to try it out. I built the frame months ago but trying to source the correct sized wire was a bit of a trick. It was available at our local big-box in 10m rolls (wasn't sure what I do with the other 8.5m!) at a price that could almost reignite the financial crisis. Fortunately I found a local salvage yard that sold it by the metre and at a price that would still enable me to put food on the table.

It's always a little disconcerting when you make something, having never tried it out, and are completely unsure as to whether it would do what I was hoping that it would. Fortunately my fears were allayed quickly as I tossed the first scoop onto the compost sifter and heard the filtered material fall onto the tarpaulin beneath it. It was working.

Scoop after glorious scoop was thrown onto the compost sifter with the refuse remaining unfiltered.

There are a couple of options that a gardener can take with this leftover material.

1. Throw it back into the next compost heap to continue breaking down. The refuse was already in varying states of decomposition so adding it to another pile would just continue the process until, over time, the larger sticks would completely break down. The benefit of doing this was that it also allowed the bacterias that had started decomposing this material to continue growing into the next heap, hopefully speeding up the process.


2. Some of this refuse could be taken as material for compost tea. It has all the trademarks of compost but just hasn't had the time needed to completely break down. Using it as compost tea material would enable the tea to still draw out the benefits and help speed up the decomposition process so that the refuse could be added to another heap for further breaking down.


3. It could also be re-shredded. I wouldn't recommend this if your chipper shredder struggles with wet material but if it can handle it then re-shredding will make it mush easier for your compost heap to break it down.

Needless to say, my refuse went straight back into the next compost heap and will continue the process there.

I only filtered half of my heap through the compost sifter and ended up with a full wheelbarrow of this wonderful material. It was light and fluffy and obviously better for having been screened with the main benefit being that now it was available for a heap of other uses.

In this case, the whole barrow went towards amending one of my front garden beds, and the next one will probably go the same way. But, at this level I could quite easily use it for potting soil or even straight as seed raising mix. It would seem a waste to use it in compost tea but, as I mentioned earlier, the refuse from the screen would work great instead.

IMHO, the compost sifter has certainly proved its worth and I'm glad I went to the trouble of building it. It will certainly become one of my best gardening tools.