Man Turns PVC Pipe Into A Nifty Soil Sifter With An Impressive DIY

By itself, native soil tends to get compacted and full of rocks and wood chips, so if you're going to use it to start a garden, you need a way to loosen it and remove the debris. In short, you need a soil sifter, and the YouTube channel Greens and Machines posted a video that shows you an easy way to make one using PVC piping. The project doesn't involve cutting or fastening wood, and you won't need any tools except for a pipe cutter and wire snips.

Posting as Vinny at GreensandMachines.com, the YouTuber explains that he needed a sifter to make seed starting more successful, but that isn't the only benefit a sifter — or sieve — can give to a garden. Once plants get established in sifted soil, they typically grow straighter and stronger, because loose soil offers less resistance to the roots and allows them to stretch out further. Sifting compost can also make a garden healthier by removing clumps of organic matter that can turn moldy.  

To make a sifter according to Vinny's design, you'll need four lengths of PVC pipe (Vinny used ¾-inch pipe), four PVC elbows, some PVC cement, ¼-inch steel mesh, and cable ties to hold the mesh to the pipes. Vinny cut the pipe into lengths to make an 8- by 22-inch rectangle, but the lengths are entirely optional. Although the YouTuber cut the pipes with a PVC pipe cutter, you can also use a handsaw if you sand the edges to make the pipes fit together smoothly.

The procedure to construct Vinny's sifter is dead simple. First, you glue the pipes into the elbows with PVC cement to form a rectangle. You then cut a rectangle from the mesh to fit inside the frame using wire snips, and you attach the mesh to the frame with cable ties. Once the ties are tight and secure, use the wire snips to cut off the ends.

Vinny's sifter is a moderate size, making it ideal for container gardens, but you could adapt the idea to make a larger one for sifting sand for masonry work or for hunting for artifacts at the beach. You might need to adjust the size of the mesh openings, depending on the material you are sifting and the size of the objects you want to filter out. An ⅛-inch mesh, which would be great for beach-combing, would make soil sifting a very slow process. Vinny chose ¼-inch mesh, but even that might be too small for wet soil or compost. If so, it's easy to cut the cable ties and replace the mesh.

You can use the sifter in two ways. One is to place it over a bucket, pile the dirt or compost on top, and lightly move your hand over the material to force the smaller particles through the mesh while leaving the larger ones behind. The other way is to hold the sifter with both hands and shake it. Either way, the material left on the screen stays out of your garden.