Should you screen your own topsoil
Every farmer knows that a good yield of crops relies on having a great base of high-quality topsoil. Good soil contains tons of nutrients for your plants to thrive and grow and will help keep them hydrated by promoting water flow. It makes a HUGE difference!
But getting great soil isn't as straightforward as you would think.
Cheaper soil distributors may pack their topsoil bags full of chemicals and fertilizers that might boost plant growth but can also be harmful to handle or even effect whether your product is edible after it grows.
Hunting around for good topsoil providers can be a pain, and good organic material can often cost a bomb.
However, there is another way to get your hands on top-quality soil without forking out huge amounts of cash; you can start making your own!
We've talked a bit before about screening topsoil or choosing the right screener for producing topsoil, so I won't go into that here. The long and short of it is that producing good-quality soil isn't rocket science. You can pretty easily start making your own, but why would you want to?
For one, when you make your own topsoil, you know exactly what is going into the mix. Usually you'll be taking dirt directly from your own land and passing it through a screener. So you can get free soil from your own sources and remove larger rocks and organic material to produce a really pure and high-quality product.
If you want to get really fancy, you can even start mixing in some organic material like food waste, sawdust, or manure and leaving your screened soil to ferment. This will recreate a lot of the effects of a high-quality compost, all for next to nothing!
Obviously there will be an initial cost in purchasing a screener, but here's the thing: once you own your own screener, you can make a virtually infinite amount of fantastic quality topsoil for yourself or even to sell.
So not only will you be saving money, you could also earn some by selling your own screened materials. You could even rent your machine out to make extra money when you aren't using it.
Let's look at these numbers for a minute. Looking at the average price of top soil across three US states, we found the average price per cubic yard to be around $30. A cubic yard is just about over 1 ton.
Even a small screening bucket can screen 25 tonnes an hour, meaning it could be making you/saving you $750! That's insane when you consider it only costs $25,000. It would literally pay for itself in less than a few days of work.
For smaller needs, topsoil screeners like the GV-1500 can be attached to an excavator if you already have one. Or you could even use a screen box. If you need something bigger, we recommend checking out a sclaping screen for maximum versatility.
