Washing horticultural grit and gravel

[Georgie]

I use a lot of grit and gravel in my garden, mainly to top dress pots.  Most types need washing first and I find this a chore using an old fine kictchen sieve and a dreadful waste of water.  There must be something I could rig up to let the rain do the job for me but what?  I've tried filing 5" pots and leaving them out but this isn't very successful.  Any ideas anyone?

G x

[Georgie]

[star]

How about a garden sieve over a water butt, just under the downspout to the butt. Or does the gravel dust affect plants if it was in the water (when you use water on the plants)?

Other than that I have no idea.....sorry :-\

[Georgie]

Hi Star.  The sand is not good for the plants hence the need to wash it away.  A large garden sieve balanced on some plant pots might do the trick but all the ones I've seen don't have a fine enough mesh for grit.  Then again horticultural fleece or old tights are too fine.   ::)

G x

[star]

Tricky then, hope you come up with something  ;)

[Tee Gee]

Get two buckets or similar where one is much larger than the other.

Drill lots of fine holes into the smaller bucket then fill this with your grit.

Put this in the big bucket that should have no holes in it and fill them through the small bucket with water.

It could be an advantage to place a house brick in the bottom of the large bucket to sit the small bucket on.

This will keep it out of the silt, when the  fine sand settles to the bottom of the water.

You may have to agitate the small bucket now and again depending upon how dirty the grit is.

Lift the small bucket out and let it drain then your grit should be reasonably clean.

To save water you could support the small bucket over the large one as it drains and it may be possible to use most of the water again.

I hope that makes sense!

[katynewbie]

 :o

Sheer Genius TG!

Simple but perfect!

Hope that sorts it out for you Georgie!

;)

[Georgie]

Tee Gee that's an excellent idea.  Thank you so much.   ;D

G x