Filtering your compost

[Jeral Poskey]

This group has been quiet for a while, but I've got a question.

My situation is that I do worm composting with two bins. For one bin, I stopped adding food months ago, and the worms have slowly worked their way and finished it off. 

My next step is to separate the good compost from the rest -- the mango seeds, random twigs, etc. Also, this compost turned out very gummy, so it is in lots of clumps that need to be broken up.

I'm wondering if anyone has set up something with a mesh that I can use to pour or shake the compost through to extract the larger stuff.

Thanks,

Jeral

[Kristina (Stevenson PACT school)]

I have some plastic mesh (the kind you put over your seeds to keep the critters from digging them up).  I dump the compost onto a large square of it, pull up the corners in one hand, and shake.

Ideally I would make a wood frame and staple-gun the mesh to it ... just haven't gotten around to doing that yet.

The compost is a lot less chunky since I got this shredder:   http://www.amazon.com/Cycler-Manual-Kitchen-Compost-Shredder/dp/B008K6FFYM

[Jennifer Travis]

A good friend of mine made a small wooden and wire mesh sifter for me which works really well. It is easy to use and helps sort out large amounts of compost fairly easily. I highly recommend it. 

You can see pictures and a link to my friend's blog on how she made it on my blog: http://eastsacedible.com/2014/05/10/the-compost-sifter/

Thanks Jeral for adding to this group. It always brightens my day to get an email about compost! 

~ Jennifer