Garden Riddle: What’s Round, and Sifts Twigs?

Maybe it is the gold miner in me; I love to sift things through a fine mesh. Sand, flour, flecks of solid gold—I’ll take all of them on with enthusiasm.

What a pleasure to stumble across a beautifully crafted handmade wooden garden riddle via Objects of Use. Use the different-size sieves to tease out out little bits of root and rock from soil.

Above: Use a sieve to tease out out those little bits of root and rock from soil. An 8-inch Garden Riddle, handmade from steamed beech by Hill & Co. (“the UK’s sole surviving maker of traditional wood framed riddles”), it has a fine 1/8-inch steel mesh and is just the right tool for job of sifting compost into seed trays; £17.50 from Objects of Use.

Above: An 18-inch Garden Riddle comes with four choices of mesh size. How to choose? The looser weave will sift out stones. The finest size mesh will remove twigs; £25 from Objects of Use. for US gardeners, a Steel Compost Sieve is $19.95 from Gardener’s