Odd question. Mixing wood mulch with sand? How?

[fastline]

I have been asked to "figure out how" to mix a wood mulch substrate with a medium sand for certain horticulture products. This is probably a one time thing and about 125yds worth.

Right now, the only equipment onsite is the excavator. I mean, all I can think of is mixing like you are in the kitchen, but I am sure that is not really the right way.

I realize it's an odd question, but wondering if someone has had to do something similar. I would say without a conveyor and some hoppers, this will have to get creative.

 

[InsleyGuy]

Front end loader. I've mixed hundreds of yards of woodchip and soil for healing in nursery stock and also sand,peat and topsoil for golf coarse work. It's easier and faster than you would think.

 

[Welder Dave]

If you could rent a smaller tractor with a rotiller would work good. Spread it out not too deep and and run the tiller through it to mix it together. Might be cheaper to get a small tractor than a front end loader or skid steer.

 

[Delmer]

make a pile, adding one scoop of mulch, then one scoop of sand, or whatever the ratio is, dumping on the peak. If you the pile gets too high, dump against the side of the pile, then repile it one scoop at a time onto another pile.

 

[digger doug]

How about using a TMR mixer from a Dairy farm ?

 

[HarleyHappy]

Way too complicated, just use a loader.

 

[InsleyGuy]

Like Delmer says, but I used to mix it in the same pile as I went along. It cuts down on waste and clean up at the end. It depends somewhat on your mixing surface and work area. Skid steer wont let you build very high, but whatever is available will work
.

 

[Acoals]

Way too complicated, just use a loader.

^^^
When you dump on the top of a pile, especially a cone shaped pile, the material naturally mixes. The taller the pile the better.
Even a small pile it works just fine, alternate buckets, then get under it and flip it around a bit if you want. You aren't making bread here . . .

 

[Delmer]

Make a little effort to dump slowly, if it's at all clumpy, shake the bucket a bit as you dump, you don't want one big chunk of sand dropped right into the pile, then a bucket of mulch running off the sides, you want a fine flow of sand dusting down the sides. If you can reach, you could pull the pile over rather than scooping and re piling. if you just have a mini, make windrows small enough to reach over to pull to mix. Or climb on top if it will support you.

If you could get a manure spreader, alternating buckets into the spreader and forming a windrow by pulling the tractor forward a foot at a time makes a good compost windrow.

 

[fastline]

Gotcha, it sounds like making a single pile in a ratio is the basic method here? The hoe sitting there is my 322 so I can certainly just make of big pile and all components flow like water. Nice stuff! It is all sitting on the dirt so I want to try to minimize contamination, though some is perfectly acceptable. Not like we are making tea for the queen here.

Once mixed, it will then get scooped and put into containers so there is another opportunity for some mixing just by handling.

Since there is basically a single pyramid pile right now, it seems like the right thing is to grab from that, then from the sand, and make a new pile in a mix ratio.

 

[JaredV]

If you think it still needs more mixing, climb up on the pile, scoop off one side and dump on the other until you've walked the whole pile over.

 

[cuttin edge]

We used to use the bins for the asphalt plant to mix salt sand. One bin sand, one bin salt, slower feed rate for the salt, and use the off shoot instead of putting it through the plant. It was cheaper and easier to use a loader as mentioned above.

 

[chidog]

A crawler tractor dozer is the perfect mixing machine.

 

[HarleyHappy]

I’ve used one, thought the loader was faster.
YMMV

 

[chidog]

Must have been too small. The bigger the better. Shove all the stuff together and have fun spinning the tracks twisting and turning, spread it out, shove together and repeat if needed.
Gee in the old days mixed up many messes, that I didn't want to.