| Preparing
Once you return home with your carefully gathered samples of sand,
you need to prepare them a little before they are finally
ready for storage or display.
The first thing you need to consider is whether the
samples need to be washed. Most samples collected dry, such
as those from the tops of sand dunes in dry weather, will
not usually need washing. However, sand collected from the
foreshore, i.e. between the high and low tide line at the coast, and also along
river banks, may be full of all manner of organic matter,
both living and dead, that may decompose and create, shall
we say, unpleasant odours.
To wash sand samples, I've found the easiest way is the
place the sand into a shallow container and gentle flood
water from the garden hose onto the sand. Organic materials
will soon wash away. It's best to do this outdoors and not
at the kitchen sink, which will eventually become clogged
with a hard cement-like substance.
Next, all samples should be thoroughly dried before
storage. There are many ways to do this but simply spreading
the sample out in a flat bottomed tray will usually do
the trick. A good tip is to use a bulldog clip to attach the labelled
sampling bags to the tray to avoid mixing the samples up.
During the summer, I've found that leaving the samples in
the garden shed will have them dry in a few days. However,
if there's room in the greenhouse, this can be accomplished
in a few hours. During the colder months I tend to place
them on top of the central heating boiler in the kitchen -
gets them dry within a day or so.
One final task is really a matter of preference, that of
sieving the sand to remove unwanted debris such as larger gravel,
shells fragments and other matter. Some collectors prefer to leave their sand
as collected. Personally, I like to sieve my samples before
storage. To do this I've bought a set of three 300 mm
diameter stainless steel sieves, of the type used by Bonsai
growers to sieve their growing medium. They costs between £15.00
and £20.00
The set consists of 2 mm, 4 mm and 7 mm mesh sizes and
the smallest 2 mm size is used. The idea is
to keep the sample as close as possible to that collected
and only remove the larger unwanted items. And that's about
it really, once washed and dried, a quantity of sand goes
into the display containers while the remainder gets spread
on the garden. |
