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Now I know I'm eccentric, and some may say I was mad, but I want to know if anyone knows where all the blooming stones in my garden have come from.

I dug my new veggie ptches thoroughly and scrupulously last year and grew well on them. I did remove quite a lot of stones, it's true. But I also made sure that I left no big stones at all in my beds. I turned the earth in the autmn on the vacated beds too.

However, over the last 2 weeks I have been digging the same beds again ready for my seedlings. And the beds are literally full of stones. Some are on the top of the soil but there are just loads and loads underneath. Some of them are absolutely MASSIVE and rerquire leverage.

I have never seen anything like this.

I have 2 thoughts about the source of the stones, given that my garden is totally secure and no one has deliberately planted them. And my dog can't get into the veggie area.

Now I know these may sound daft ideas but does anyone know if....
1. earthworms raise stones to the surface?
2. Tree roots move stones and push them up to the surface. There are loads of tree roots in the garden but none in the top 12 inches of my veg beds.

I will leave no stone unturned in getting to the root of this problem!!
Any ideas anyone?

Just shows you that soil is not inert! I think both of your ideas may have some truth in them. Lots of things going on underground.

Here's a small experiment to show how it happens.......

Put a cup of peas and a cup of cous cous (dried please, this is a scientific study, not a recipe ) anyway put them into a bowl and stir.

You now have an example of your veg plot, mixture of stones (peas) and soil (cous cous)

Now pick the peas off the top...

Now tap the side of your bowl gently a few times... (simulating, gentle earthquakes, walking past the plot, worms and roots movement)

More peas will now have risen to the top...



That is how your stones always come to the top.....

That's science baby








ummmmmm I haven't actually done this... but it should work....it should

The question remains - who is it that gently taps the side of the garden?

I have a similar puzzle with bottles. Lived here 18 years and one of the first things I did was check out the bottle dump behind the house and sure enough every year, no matter how thorough I am more and more bottles appear. Brylcream, milk of magnesia, coopers sheep drench, cream jars, every brand of whiskey Known to man, HP sauce, every shape and colour you can imagine.

Cheers, Paul

Don't talk to me bout stones! I am as stiff as h3ll today... went to the farm yesterday morning to collect 3 bags of pig food. Elaine looked delightedto see me: "Are you busy?" she asked. Now I had offered to help previously and spent the morning moving sheep with their lambs from one field to another then walking ewes from the lambing shed to the newly emptied field carrying their lambs and trying to get them to follow (some sheep are pretty thick and did not want to follow!) However after moving about 160 ewes and their their lambs we had a quick lunch then I was asked "Can you help us pick stones?" again I said "Of course" I knew the contractor and his seed drill was on the farm that day and the weather was ideal for sowing - both Elaine, her husband and two girls have been lambing through the night and were knackered. So their Polish worker Radek and I set off to pick stones in what was probably a 20 acre field that had been permanent pasture before. We had been in the field about half an hour when the drill press joined us - boy did we have to go at some pace to keep in front of him. Radek was driving a telehandeler with a 2.5 tonne bucket and I was on a quadbike. We went two abreast and picked just over 10 tonnes of stones off the field in 5 hours. We almost ended up cornered at the finish by the seed drill but we did make it!

Given the choice again (which I think will be Monday!) between sheep and stones I will pick sheep every time!

trolls

or gremlins

or leprechauns

or it could be pixies

depends on your type of soil

'tis mining spoil


hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go --------------------

THis is exactly why, year after year, metal detectorists return to the same site (unploughed) and find more stuff.

ina wrote:The question remains - who is it that gently taps the side of the garden?

The soil itself expands and contracts with changes in the temperature and moisture/humidity levels. This is why foundations have to be below frost level, otherwise the frost will heave the house crooked.

as well as a kitchen garden plot we have rented a corner of a field & last year seemed to mostly be growing stones I expected it when digging & the rotivator trundling over it but its been funny to see them literally *appear* on earth thats just been left.We decided they either fall from the sky or work their way up via weightlifting worms

Ellendra wrote: The soil itself expands and contracts with changes in the temperature and moisture/humidity levels. This is why foundations have to be below frost level, otherwise the frost will heave the house crooked.

Yeeees - but that explanation is not nearly as interesting as some giant sitting underground with a tapper!

Where we are it was probably river bed a few hundred years ago so huge stones just appearing are a way of life for us.
Our veggie garden will be very free draining as there was no way I could get rid of them all so will just have to work around them.
Landscape gardeners would probably buy ours off us because they are so smooth and uniform in size, I use them around the house as features etc.
We just have to be careful when we mow the grass with the slasher on the tractor and go round gathering stones first or else they shoot off everywhere like bullets!

Sky wrote: We just have to be careful when we mow the grass with the slasher on the tractor and go round gathering stones first or else they shoot off everywhere like bullets!

get some old conveyor belt material and tack it round the slasher, works wonders, we used to wear motor bike kit on the tractor till we got some.

Could be a government conspiracy to get us all digging for victory again
and dont forget the little people
must stop drinking this wine

Russ

old tree man wrote: must stop drinking this wine

Russ

What - for breakfast?