The Shire.....

I applaud your enthusiasm Danny!

My Mojo is a little bit on hold at the mo but I am sure I will get it back eventually!

I am planning raised beds without sides, but set in a herringbone  fashion from the central path. (just to be different) The problem is I will have to work around plants already growing, or  else transplant  them into the herringbone.

Thanks for the applause Vinny, I think if I didn't have the plot to keep me going I'd go gaga!!

The herringbone fashion sounds interesting, a birds eye view would be good. Regards the plants already there I'd personally transplant if feasible.

Talking of birds eye views I've been looking at videos on YT which got me thinking about getting a drone! I know boys and toys but hey it might be fun, will see what No.2 son thinks

I used to work at a Sportsground Danny and maintained a football pitch to a fairly high standard. The Coaches used drones to  watch the games and play it back to the players as a coaching aid. I had a word with the guy operating the drone and asked if he would do a fly over when the pitch wasn't being played so I could spot the wear areas and have a record for when the season ended. At the end of the season I used this record to pool my resources in the main wear areas. Hollowcoring and brushing horticultural sand into these areas made a vast improvement in the condition of the pitch the following year.

Nice one Vinny,  utilise your resources

I was on my phone last night should couldn't be bothered to type a lot. When you saw the overhead of the pitch were the worn areas where you would of expected? I remember the football pitches in the 80's, more mud than grass

This was only about three years ago you cheeky bugger!  I new vaguely where to pool my resources but the video helped.i

t was a Northern League pitch that I had established from scratch including the initial drill seeding with 40 bags of seed. Although there was originally clay a piped drainage system this was not working and there was not enough money to replace it before cultivating,laser  levelling and reseeding. The pitch was in good nick as we had our own verti drain and made good use of it as well as using hollow cored tines and filling holes with a specially commissioned free draining sports sand. The cores we took out were nigh on solid clay. We had our own tractor mounted topdressing machine and pitch was topdressed throughout the year, rather than a single application at the end of season.
In essence we hollow cored with 25mm tines  at 100mm centres the most worn areas (as shown on the video we took) and solid tined with 25mm tines out of season and 20mm tines during season always followed by topdressings.

I loved that bladdy pitch and treat it like my baby....which it was. Its the only thing I miss in retirement.