Roots: The Story of Compromised Topsoil

With last year's intensive landscaping efforts, after 9 years of doing virtually nothing productive in the yard, I tore through one load of topsoil and quickly had to have a second one delivered. By the time I'd finished most of my early summer yard labors, sometime in June, I still had a good half-pile of that topsoil left. I've always kept it covered with the tarp, assuming that the threats to the integrity of that topsoil would come from seeds and such dropped from above.

Boy, was I wrong about that.

When I tore off the tarp to get started with my yard plans this month, I found that nearly the entire pile of remaining topsoil mix was riddled through with roots.

One culprit with major evidence to indict: the stand of reeds that are growing along the south property line, back in that back corner of the property. I like their screening capabilities to separate me from the backyard of the apartment house next door, but I should also acknowledge their invasive tendencies:

Given that I needed to get moving on some of my yardwork and not wanting this to go to waste, I tried a few wheelbarrow loads where I'd pull out by hand the clumps and long strands of roots.

And this was, of course, of limited effectiveness. I hoped that spreading this soil with the garden rake would help me get out more of the roots. This, too, proved insufficient.

So I built myself a soil sifter. Mind you, I'm not all that great a woodworker, with limited experience in carpentry. But I must say I produced a very serviceable product:

It was pretty darned good at sorting out most of the roots and the hard dirt clumps and the few rocks in my topsoil pile:

I am gradually filling in and building up the area known as the grove, and I felt better about using this screened soil to help me do that.

Friday Update: As of this evening, I've now shoveled, sifted, screened, and moved just about all of that old pile that I can. I've now knocked down what remains, covered it with the old tarp, and plan to have a fresh new load of topsoil delivered pronto.