🌱 Sift Smart, Garden Better!
The Rotary Soil Sifter is a 13-inch sifting filter designed to revolutionize your gardening experience. With a 1/5 inch mesh, it efficiently separates stones, weeds, and non-organic materials from your compost, making the process 4-5 times quicker than traditional hand sifting. Its durable metal construction ensures longevity, while easy assembly allows you to start sifting in just minutes.
P**R
Works best with drier compost, and flip the legs if you want to use a 5 gal. bucket!
I have composted for years, and always sifted by hand before, but this thing actually makes it quite a bit cleaner and easier! Instead of trying to balance a big screen over the top of an angled wheelbarrow, this thing fits nicely over a 5 gallon bucket from Home Depot or Lowes. The agitator that spins is spring mounted, so it normally spins about a half inch above the screen, which is fine for the majority of the sifting, but if you get clumps that you need to break up, you can push down on the handle as you're turning it, which pushes the agitator down flush with the screen, to help push bits through the screen.Note: After watching a video of another customer sifting into a bucket, when they fought with getting it off of the bucket, because the legs have little 90 degree "feet" at the end that catch on the rim of the bucket, I decided to mount the legs on mine backwards with the feet facing outward. (see photo). The legs actually have a little rounded bend to them so that they conform to the edge of the round sifter, but you can still mount them backwards and just tighten the bolts enough to make them secure. This way, it just slides right on and off the bucket!So assembly only took about 10 minutes. With fairly dry compost, it takes maybe 5 minutes to fill a 5 gallon bucket with perfectly sifted compost! If your compost is too wet, it takes longer because it clogs up the screen with mud. But then I find it much easier to haul the 5 gallon bucket of compost around to my garden beds, instead of trying to navigate an unsteady wheelbarrow up some steps.So this is now a valued tool in my arsenal!
J**S
Works well when grinding dry components; not so much when things are wet.
I was super excited to try this and threw it together as soon as it arrived. Unfortunately it was a humid misty day and I tried to use it on moist-ish horse apples and wood chips. Things did not go well and I was super annoyed and disappointed.A week later on a much drier day I gave it a go again and it worked like I had hoped it would.I'm grinding through my dried food waste, weeds, compost and composted manure. I was getting frustrated when hay bits were winding around the axle...and I noticed a bunch of weed seed heads in the mix. Winter is coming and despite being ground up, I don't expect that I will be able to turn the pile...so my compost will probably not reach the temperature needed to kill the seeds. I grabbed my blow torch* and used it to burn off the seed heads and burn/break up the stalks, making it much easier to grind and burning up the weed seeds. I find it much easier to use this way.*But, obviously be sensible. It's like when you use a propane weed burner.... do this far from your home, away from stretches of dry plant material that can catch. Rake away leaves and keep an eye on any embers. I do it in my driveway where there are no overhead tree branches. I keep a bucket full of water beside me and the hose with the spray nozzle. If an ember pops up, spray it. Spray water around the area you are working to prevent brush fires. I keep my fire extinguisher on hand just in case, but haven't needed it. Also, if you try this don't forget to keep your hair pulled back, don't wear loose clothes, stay upwind, don't do it if the wind direction is changing constantly, etc..I am developing a bit of tennis elbow doing this, but am going to try to find a way to automate it.Happy grinding!
M**K
This is probably what you're looking for
If you're like me and are just looking for a better way to sift your home compost pile/tumbler/worm bin, this is what you're looking for. It's not perfect, the welds are a little ugly, assembly is a little bit harder than it should be for how simple the device is, and it's not going to shred any leftover cardboard or break up any especially hard clumps, but it let me sift roughly 15 gallons of compost in about an hour.You'll have to practice best composting processes like drying before you sift and accept that not everything is going to sift because it's too wet or not fully broken down, but if you're looking to process through some properly prepped compost it's fantastic.
J**N
Great little sifter!
Only problem I have had was trying to remove it from the 5 gallon bucket, after I got finished sifting. So, I placed it in a larger tub after that. Works great!
S**5
Pretty significant design flaw
Outside of being pretty loose packed and scratched up there is a pretty significant design flaw on this unit that makes it essentially unusable without modification.The ball that you grab as you crank the handle is not free spinning, it's full threaded.If you spin clockwise it unthreads from the unit.If you spin counter clock wise you have to loosen your grip and let the ball rub in your hand making it harder to crank and ensuring you get many blisters.Also the weld on this unit is right where the holes are for one of the legs making installation difficult. This is a quality issue and a simple fix for the manufacturer to locate the holes farther away from the weld.Overall not worth the price of these under any brand name, it's more of a kids toy tbh.
A**R
Great soil sifter
It works awesome it’s almost like a big coffee grinder.Leaves a nice fine loom of soil. It separates the debris fast and its easy to assemble. Works better than my larger steel mesh wooden frame sifter.
G**Y
Welding is not very good
It works. I like that it fits on a 5 gallon bucket. I hate that the handle is a screw on part, and if you rotate this clockwise, it works its way off very quickly. My main issue is the quality. I used this for a weekend and by Sunday it was garbage. The screen welds broke and this made the thing bind up and allowed debris from the soil to escape. For the money I expected it to last longer and be more durable.
M**H
Well built! Nice yard tool
Great product overall! Only issue, which others identified was the knob handle is a screw on. Meaning, if you crank the wrong direction the knob unscrews. I've found after everything is covered in dirt, including my gloves, it no longer becomes an issue. I would recommend this to others as long as you're not afraid of putting a bit of elbo grease into your project ;).
Trustpilot
2 months ago
1 month ago