Soil Cleanup Project: FAIL!

A few days ago I decided that I needed to correct the soil being used in my beds before I transplant or sow.  Turned out to be a blessing that none of my friends responded to my call for help because my plan failed big time!

I set everything up as I had envisioned and was feeling pretty good about it until I had the first shovel load in the screen - way too wet and sticky.  The organic materials from the sod, the green mesh backing and the dirt all clumped together like adobe.

After about 1.5 hours I had processed 3 loads and decided to call it quits for the day.  The only way I was able to make it work was to beat individual clumps against the mesh to loosen them up, then I would kneel and smack the underside of the screen which would send the clods bouncing around and as they came down again they would shed a bit of their attached soil.  Stupid, totally and completely stupid.

A few Budweisers set me down the path to a potential solution, I pre-dug the bed (as seen to the right of the horse) to expose it to sunlight and hopefully let it dry out a bit.  I'm hoping that if it's a bit more dry it will work as originally planned.  If I can't get this done by the end of this weekend I will dig it all out and replace with purchased soil and amendments - I hope it doesn't come to that.

As always Chui did nothing.