I've spent some time sifting soil but now leave all pebbles that are about 1" diameter or smaller. Anything larger I handpick. Unless one is growing carrots, which I'm not, these pebbles don't present a problem.

BTW, the more compost you add (which won't have pebbles) the less you'll notice the pebbles.

anything under an inch won't effect digging, so I leave them in there.

As a perfectionist I discarded all forms of pebbles and rocks whenever I see them , 'cause they totally can't retain moisture or nutrient, while serving as hiding place for slugs, and interfere with my soil digging(they can also damage my digging tools in the long run). Even pure sand has more use in the garden than rocks. Rocks and pebbles are only meant to be stepped on under you feet. They just don't belong in the soil of your garden.

Of course if you do find a motherstone it must be removed, unless you want all the pebble babies they breed.

This post was edited by TXEB on Mon, Sep 9, 13 at 22:24

Keep in mind that the mineral portion of your soil, the sand and/or clay, came from those pebbles, stones, and rocks. The pebbles, stones, and rock might present some problems if you are growing root crops such as carrots, turnips, parsnips, etc. but not much else.
Whether to remove or leave them is mostly up to you.

I don't like the idea of rocks in my garden although small ones likely don't hurt clayey soils so much. I would think that sandy soils would not benefit from them unless the sand was a fine packing type that might benefit a tad from some diversity of size.

Rocks in soil actually enhance drainage so there is absolutely no need to remove smaller rocks - typically the recommendation is anything larger than an inch or so in diameter remove; the rest ignore.

And there are entire classifications of gardens devoted to rocks - rock or scree gardens. If you have an abundance of rocks, make use of them with a garden intended for their presence. Or if of large enough size, use them to create a dry stream bed. Or mosaic walkways or stepping stones.

Gosh, you rock haters wouldn't last a day gardening in the PNW!! I'm not sure perfection has a place in the garden.......it's, well....unnatural :-))

Whether stone improves drainage or not depends upon the soil and how much stone. It won't do anything for drainage in our expansive clay soils unless the volume fraction of rock gets to about 50%. Below that the clay just surrounds them as a continuous phase, much like the aggregate in a concrete mix. There has to be enough stone to disrupt the continuity of the clay. For those who like to use stone to amend clay soils in SE TX expanded shale is what is generally recommended, and it is applied as a 3" layer that is tilled/mixed to a resultant depth of 6" after the addition. Turns out, that's ~ 50% volume fraction.

edit added - I should have included it also depends upon the nature of the stone too. The expanded shale I mentioned is quite small - 3/8" - and is porous. Stone/rocks of an inch, or more, in any rational amount will do nothing to improve the drainage in fine textured clay soils.

This post was edited by TXEB on Tue, Sep 10, 13 at 22:38

Drainage of more sandy soil types do not need any further improvement and for the clay types it would be just like what txeb said, like the aggregate in a concrete mix. There are just too many other materials far more suitable for that job (peat moss comes to mind). And I definitely will not live a few hundred years for those pebbles and rocks in my beds to turn into some kind of soil or anything.

Rocks and pebbles have their places in your garden, but just not inside your growing beds.

C'mon....let's get sensible here! No one said anything about adding rocks to the soil, only dealing with them where they naturally exist. In my area, glacial till is the most common soil type and it is a combination of a rocky, sandy, clayey soil usually devoid of much organic matter. But drains really well.....simply because of the gravelly, sandy presence. Attempting to remove ALL the small rocks from any planting beds would take you the rest of your lifetime! And what a wasted effort! The smaller ones are easy enough to work around without issue and when a planting bed is properly mulched, they have vanished from sight. Easy-peasy!!

If there were no place for rocks and pebbles in the garden, where would we be with respect to alpine, scree or rock gardens?.....some of the most beautiful gardens are those created out of difficult conditions using plants ideally suited to those conditions, including many dry or xeriscape gardens. Let's not be quite so narrow minded about what constitutes suitable gardening conditions. Not everyone wants or even desires perfection. And it is always preferable to take advantage of the situation you have on hand rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.

FWIW, peat moss is generally listed pretty low on the list of recommended soil amendments for any number of reasons, discussions about its sustainability being only one. That is a very old school approach to soil amending.

you're right - nobody was talking about adding rocks to the soil. My comment was directed at the idea that rocks enhanced the drainage of soils. That's not entirely accurate. It truly depends upon the texture of the soil. In most true clay soils with a clay content of 50% or more, the natural presence of rock/stone doesn't enhance drainage. The OP had previously commented in a different thread that her soil was clay, which I took as accurate. So I go back to my original comment, if they're in your way remove them, if not leave them.

BTW - if you put peat moss in our soil in any rational quantity you tend to get a persistently wet sloppy mess.

This post was edited by TXEB on Wed, Sep 11, 13 at 20:54