Have you ever tried to plant a garden but found too many rocks taking space in the soil? Do you have the feeling that removing them is an incredibly tedious task?
Many times, people try to work up their lawns and gardens but end up finding more than required rocks in them. There are some best ways to remove rocks from the soil. However, sometimes, it may be hard because the soil is rocky in nature or there might be the dumping of unscreened soil in the garden.
Rocks found in the soil can vary a lot in size, ranging from barely visible to dozens of kilos rocks. Removing them can be hectic but if proper tools and methods are used, it can be done much more easily.
Why Should Rocks Be Removed From Soil?
Rocks are dead and don't affect the plant's growths but sometimes they may block the roots of these plants from reaching underground sources. Rocks may also occupy the free soil available for the plants and deprive them of the growing space, which makes them congested and thus slowly die.
These rocks make the soil a bit hard, which is the reason behind the fact that proper penetration does not occur to the roots. It makes the plants weaker.
Moreover, there are some plants like potatoes and beetroots which require a clear ground for their plantation. Therefore, plantation ground should always be made free of rocks whenever possible. Furthermore, rocks make the soil stiff over time and maximize the draining of water in the soil. So over time, rocks lying in the soil can be harmful to the plants and should be removed when required.
What Materials Are Required?
Removing the rocks from soil can be done by various ways as well as with different materials. There are automated and manual ways to remove the rocks. The initial way should always be preferred over the later because it save a lot of time and effort as compared to the manual method. Besides, the automation of such things might not be as effective as the manual method.
How To Remove Rocks From Soil Manually?
Removing rocks from soil manually is pretty easy and doesn't require many materials. The required qualities are patience and force.
Materials Required
- Shovel
- Bucket or any container
- A separator screen or net
Step By Step
- Locate the areas with rocks and try to divide the areas according to the size of the rocks.
- While removing smaller rocks, take your shovel and try to dig a bit deeper than the layer of rocks and scoop up all you can get in the shovel plate.
- Put all the scooped content in the bucket and continue.
- For medium to large size rocks, manual hand picking is preferential as shoveling the rocks up may require more effort than normal. Hence, to save energy and time manually pick these kinds of rocks up.
- To remove rocks from larger areas, shovel up the soil and collect it at one place.
- Scrape the topsoil with rocks into piles with a box scraper.
- Build a separator screen out of expanded metal or chain link. The mesh is held at a 45-60 degree angle on a movable tractor steel or wood frame.
- Scoop the piles with a front end loader and dump them onto the top edge of the screen. As the soil tumbles down the screen, gravity filters the soil through the screen. Then the rocks and debris slide down the topside and fall off the low end.
- Scoop and remove the rocks and debris pile, spread the topsoil pile with the box scraper.
- Move to the next pile and do it again.
- Repeat the process until all the rocks are removed.
How To Remove The Rocks From Soil By Using Machines?
Manual extraction of rocks can be effective but it’s time-consuming and awfully boring. If you need to do this without wasting your energy, machines are preferred to automate this work.
Materials Required
- Tractor
- Plough or any tool to unravel soil.
- A net or screen to separate rocks.
Step By Step
- Attach the plough to the tractor.
- Unravel the whole ground topsoil with it.
- Once the soil is loosened, the rocks will be more clearly visible and easy to remove.
- Using the plough and tractor collect all the rocks at a place by dragging them to the point of storage.
- Once donem use the net to separate the rocks from the soil.
- Spread the filtered soil back on the field.
There are pre-designed machines and equipment which are specifically made to carry out this kind of work effortlessly.
Certainly big machines, which are used in the mines for digging wells and tube wells, can remove rocks. Therefore, they can be used in this case.
Conclusion
Removing rocks from the soil is a necessary step if you want to grow those required clear ground plants. Manually removing rocks is always preferred for smaller areas at it can give pretty good results as compared to the usage of automated machines. Larger land areas should only be done by machines as doing all the removing work by hand is not possible.
To start with smaller areas, firstly the soil should be loosened up by using a shovel or a tiller. For larger or medium sized rocks, they can be directly picked up and collected. The smaller rocks should be separated by nets or strainers used in cement factories. These will help to filter the soil and smaller portions of rocks separately. You can either buy a readymade net from the local gardening shops or learn to make a strainer yourself here.
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