What technique should I use to remove rubble from earth, using a small excavator

excavatorgardening

I've a patch of earth – mostly fairly sticky Gloucestershire clay – which our previous builder has left mixed up with bricks, larger lumps of concrete and who knows what else. I want to level this and leave enough earth on the surface to let wildflowers and perhaps grass grow.

I'm not expecting this to ever turn into a beautiful lawn, so I'm quite happy to have a go myself with a smallish excavator. The particular bit of land will end up hidden behind a coppice so it needs to be made tidy but not perfect. It's about 30' by 70' in all, with a few trees, and on a slight slope.

Can anyone share techniques on how best to approach this? Should I consider hiring a driver with the digger, or is this feasible as a DIY job? I've used a digger for a weekend before on a lighter job but nothing quite on this scale.

Best Answer

My yard is of similar size, and I had the same problem: rocks, concrete blocks, and trash. With no previous experience, I rented a Toro Dingo with a few different attachments.

Toro Dingo
(source: toro.com)

The attachments I used were:

  • Soil cultivator. I used it to till old grass down into the ground, since I was planning to lay new sod. It tilled grass and weeds far enough into the ground that they did not resurface.

soil cultivator
(source: toro.com)

  • Leveler. I used it to, well, level the ground. As a side effect, it brought rocks and trash to the surface so I could pick it up easily.

leveler

  • Standard bucket for enlarging a large hole (in order to bury concrete blocks), moving large concrete blocks and rocks, filling the hole, and otherwise moving larger amounts of dirt.

standard bucket
(source: toro.com)

It took me about eight hours for a yard of about the same size as yours. That included adding 20 cubic yards of new loam on top. The rental charge was about $400 including delivery and pickup. It was reasonably easy to make the yard flat, but much harder to make it level because I didn't have any level ground to start from. If you need your yard to be level, I would recommend hiring someone.