Day 32 - Friday 8 June - The final push - Seed sowing

From green to sandy yellow again.

At 7am fertilizer was spread across the pitch. Dave Balmer holds up the label showing the balance of the components.

Pallets containing 25 bags of seed - not all for us though..

Details of the seed used.

The hopper drops the seed between the two rollers.

The hopper is filled with seed.

Let's just hope the birds don't get sight of this..

Tractor driven seed sowing machine in operation.

Two spiked rollers rotate. The front one creates a small hole into which the seed falls. The one at the back then disturbs the surface to cover the seed.

A closeup view of the rear spiked roller.

Whilst seed sowing continues in the foreground the surface receives a light raking in the distance.

Looking low to the ground, in certain areas the very top of the matting can be seen above the layer of sand.

View from the East Stand showing the tracks laid by the seed sower.

View from the centre of the Shed.

View from the corner of the ground.

After several days spent adding more sand and raking it into the carpet eventually the time comes to sow the seed.   Initially the pitch is dressed with fertilizer.   Then the seed sowing machine is brought into action.

Ideally the installation team prefer very dry sand.   However, with rain having fallen in the not too distant past the sand is quite moist.  This means that the sand particles tend to clump together.    So, the surface is lightly raked to disturb the surface and break up the clumps before the seed is sown.

The sand is what’s known as 90:10 meaning that it’s made up of 90% pure sand and 10% soil-type particles.  It provides an excellent base for the grass roots to develop.    It’s not dissimilar to the type of sand used in children’s play pits.

In all a total of 45 bags of seed were sown.   This is considerably more than has been used in the past when the pitch has been resewn during the summer break.