Couple of Deliveries

Now that the loam has arrived I have made a start on a couple of deliveries. The cost of Boughton Loam the one I sell more of than any other has gone up by 30-35pence a bag so in order to get the best deal I could I had to take delivery of and pay for it in August and as I said in an earlier post last week I took delivery of 56 tonne so the sooner I can get it out the better. 

 My first delivery was to Harewood House the ancestral home of the Lascelles

Above is the new Pavilion put up a few years ago.

 Their old Roller.

 Square need a bit of work doing on it. Around 20 years ago I cut the turf off this square -like we now do with the Koro- and I relayed it, sadly Harewood St Georges the team who play do not have the resources to maintain it in a proper fashion.

 Hare wood House which is around eight mile from Leeds city centre is a release point for Red Kites and there were around eight flying over the grounds as I was there.

I have included this photo of the old horse chestnut tree as it appears to have a problem it has already shed most of its leaves, may be it needs taking out.

 From Harewood it was off down the road to Pool to start preparing the first team pitch for a week on Saturday. The square had been recently fertilised including the pitch I was working on so it may be a green one we shall see.

 I love the new pavilion sadly it is the football changing room only I think it would have made a superb cricket pavillion.

I used the Sisis Rota Rake with the brush fit to clean out the base and present the grass for mowing.

 Then it was back to Kirkstall to face up a pitch for training, I usually cut the outfield on a Tuesday as well as Friday but I had no time to do that today and look how untidy it is looking already.

 Good enough for a net session.

Storm clouds gathering, as I left the ground I got a few very large drops of rain on the screen before I had gone a hundred yards more the heavens opened and the roads were awash.

I went down to the yard to load up to go off on my next delivery up Nidderdale to Glasshouses just south of Patley Bridge a wonderful part of the world. Just a few minutes after I got there this happened.

Its not a swarm of Locust.

I love it up here and would be very happy living here.

Within a few minutes the rain had passed and every thing was restored to normal.

I find this time of year quite stressful however when I visit places like this -where life for some reason seems much more "simple and relaxed"- it is like a tonic.

Hodgy

Busy Times

Since my last post I have taken delivery of 56 tonne of Boughton loam and my first tonne of Grass seed for resale. Facilitated the IOG/ECB Foundation Course for Cricket Groundsmen part "B"  had two nights away in Northumberland at a Wedding as well as making a pitch for the seconds for Saturday and cutting the outfield.

 Ready for the IOG/ECB Groundsman's Course on Thursday morning.

The IOG run these courses throughout the country and I always try to arrange the one at Kirkstall  in mid August which means that Groundsmen have time to go away and order materials they require for Autumn renovation before its too late. Please try not to put your supplier under more pressure, by ordering late he wants to keep you happy and will be very busy when the season ends, believe me.

  

Ian Brewster checking the depth of scarification 

 I think we had 17 guys I hope they enjoyed it and learnt from the day, I got some positive feed back which is always good.

We had a visit from Ian Lacy, Head of Professional Services at the IOG. It is a while since I have seen Ian so it was good to catch up with him.

We got some publicity out of the Olympic circles I cut into the outfield, here are a couple of photos posted on Face book.

We also got a feature on The LCA page link below.

http://www.thelca.co.uk/news/2012/kirkstall-educational-cc-hit-by-olympic-fever/?fb_action_ids=10151394771229572&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=246965925417366/

Its strange I spend hours week in week out trying to produce the best pitch possible and make the ground look as good as I can. I then spend about an hour and a half cutting some circles in the outfield and every one comments and loves it, maybe they just don't understand how long getting a ground ready for a game takes. I just want to believe it was the Magic that staging the Olympics created and although we were well away from the venues we did have a good number of contestants from Yorkshire and they did very well.

I had been sceptical about the staging of the game but when they started I soon changed my mind.

I have now managed to up load photos from my smart phone above is one I took on the 27th July of the seed trials I am doing you can see the date of sowing and at the time they had been cut twice. I am so impressed with the Top Gun that I have included it in my best seed mix for the Autumn. The fineness of the leaf, speed of establishment and colour are all excellent. It is an American cultivar  from Harrell's Seeds and has not been through the STRI test but there is nothing like experiencing things for yourself, it is growing in Boughton Loam.

I have been so busy that I have not had time to get my price list sorted for the autumn so I just cobbled up a special list for Cricket and it is below for those of you who I usually post out to.

David Hodgson

Cricket Ground Specialist

Grounds Maintenance Service and Materials Supplier

Special Cricket Price List Autumn 2012

Loams

                                                                                                                      Collected             Delivered

Boughton Kettering                                                                                        £3-90                    £4-60    

Boughton Club                                                                                               £4-00                     £4-70

Boughton County                                                                                           £4-20                     £4-90    

Kaloam                                                                                                           £4-40                     £5-10    

Surrey                                                                                                             £4-40                     £5-10

Ongar                                                                                                             £4-50                     £5-20

Fertiliser

Spring & Summer  11-5-5                                                                        £20-00/25kgs     £22-50/25kgs

Autumn Winter Everris 4-12-12                                                               £20-00/25kgs     £22-50/25kgs

Autumn Winter 3-6-8+4%Fe                                                                    £22-00/25kgs     £24-50/25kgs

Other fertilisers available including the full range of Everris speciality fertilisers

Grass Seed Mixes

David Hodgson special for top quality cricket squares, mixed by Harrell's

35% Top Gun, 35%Cachmire 30% Carnac                                               £88-00/25kgs     £98-00/25kgs

Please note for any price comparison my seed is packed and price in 25kgs not 20kgs as most other suppliers.

I have been able to secure a very competitive price by bulk buying of this special mix which is reflected in the price so I have dropped my economy mix as it would have worked out similar price

Other mixes available on request.

Other products available include: Drag Brushes (hand), Tractor Mounted Brushes, Germination Sheets, Magic Sponge, Bowling Green Top Dressing and Seed.

Services include Deep Scarification, Top Dressing, Seeding, and Spiking of Cricket squares.

All above prices are plus VAT at 20% except grass seed which is exempt.

David Hodgson

Phone/Fax 0113 2692674, Mobile 07831 715355

E-mail: david.hodgson9@btinternet.com

Unit 2, 67 Wensley Road, Leeds LS7 2LS

Please dont hesitate to contact me for prices and delivery I am here to help groundsman and Cricket Clubs.

Till next post
Hodgy

Olympic Fever

Had a busy few days, on Wednesday I raked the outfield then cut it with the gang mowers, continued to clean out and roll pitch for weekend, and went to Horbury Lawn Mowers to pick up my Sisis Rota rake after repairs. It had no power and the only way I could make it work was with the choke out. Jon said that the carb, was part bunged up with rubbish (not surprising as I us it mostly as a power brush so it has to work in a dusty environment) anyway its working OK now.

Thursday I was at Pool C C till about 1-00 cleaning out a pitch for their first team a week on Saturday. Clive the groundsman told me that the pitches are performing well after Koroing at the end of last season he went so far as to say it is one of the best things they have done in a long while along with Verti-Draining the outfield, good to see and hear that pitch/ground improvements are high on the agenda at Pool.

In the afternoon I got the 4' tractor PTO mounted brush with collection box out and brush up and collected all the rubbish left on the surface form the previous days raking, made a practise pitch on the square, only three guys showed up so I rolled my arm over for a hour or so -before you ask no I am not intending to make a come back.

One other thing I did was to mark out and mow into the outfield the five Olympic Rings, pictures are on Face-book and Twitter. I have still not sorted my camera problems out hence all these words and no pictures.

 The Olympic rings.

I have still got that spot on/in the lens and I have cleaned it time and time again.

The Olympic Rings, I was put up to do this by the lads, they caught me when I was most vulnerable after a pint or three last Saturday night.

Friday saw me at Calverley cutting their out field then back at Kirkstall to double cut my outfield -that's about a four and a half hour job.

I cut the pitch and gave it a quick roll before calling it an day at 7-00pm.

A few cracks appearing nothing to worry about the edges are firm and they are not too large

Decent grass cover it is nice to have the weather to assist pitch preparation for a change.

Just to give it a quick cut roll mark out and the boundary to white line in the morning a nice steady one!

What did I just say I have just had the second team skipper on they are short and wants a player I am sure I said earlier in this post that there is no come back intended I said I would sleep on it, I can feel a bad back coming on.

Sleep well

Hodgy

Its Been a Long Time

Well guys I feel I have neglected you for far too long.

Since my last post I have had two days at the Test Match at Headingley watched a "few" Olympic events and made a some pitches, guess that just about sums things up. All in all these things have occupied my mind, I think I said when I started this blog that I would post as often as time permits.

Anyway I am sure you have all been/are enjoying the terrific success of the Olympics so not missed my updates.

What about these Brownlee boys from Leeds? Terrific!

I hope the government see the benefits of investing in sport and continue to do so, a little cash to

Kirkstall Educational Cricket Club would not go amiss Mr. Cameron, then I could relay some pitch with 4" of clay loam instead of the 2" I have at the moment.

We are still getting very heavy rain showers here in Leeds and I got rained off today while I was raking a pitch out and had to tell the lads that there would be not grass nets today. I have offered to get a grass pitch ready on the square for Thursday evening, the weather looks set fair now for a few days.

As reported last post I am still having problems with my camera so have not taken many images recently, I now have a Samsung smart phone which take good pictures but as yet not sorted out how to down load I think I need to down load a new program first, so will do that when I have some time. 

I have tried again to night to clean the lens/mirror to get rid of the awful spot.

A couple of views of the pitch, this was for Saturday the 28th July it had a good cover but I just couldn't get it as dry as I wanted too but it played well and there were around 450 runs scored so it wasn't so bad.

Today I had a visit from Simon Hardcastle the rep for Everris I am doing some trials with Primo Maxx the growth regulator on my square so he was interested to see how they were coming on. I am looking at using some of their fertilisers I will keep you posted on that.

Today I also placed an order for my first two deliveries of Loam {if you don't know I sell loam, seed, fertiliser, etc}  that is 56 tonne of Boughton Loam if any of you are interested in a quote please let me know and I will be only too please to oblige. 

I have been asked just tonight to cut an outfield so I will have that to fit in to my week as well as some work at Pool Cricket Club, a first team pitch to make, the ground to prepare and some more Olympics to squeeze in.

Till the next update

Hodgy

PS The boys are very very keen on me cutting the Olympic Circles in to the outfield for the weekend watch this space or follow me on Twitter @hodgyleeds