Castle Park

How soon do you start work on the pitch? After talking to Groundsman Owen Evans we found out it was the final whistle of the London Welsh Game.

After the London Welsh game was completed preparations began for the Monday morning cut, which sets the triple mower on its lowest setting to cut right to the crown of the grass. Removing all of the grass blades means the remaining plant can grow strong again, and as Owen told us there wasn’t so much remaining grass this time.

“Compared to previous seasons there was 30% less grass anywhere in Castle Park mainly due to the cold spell” he explained. “Countrywide it was some of the worst weather in memory and the damage to the grass was immense. It took a lot of work getting games on towards the end of the season, but that is what we have to do. No matter what we always work until the last minute to get the games on”.

Already there have been several stages of work done this Summer such as we’ve had. With the whole site having the grass cut down to the crown 380 ton of 60% / 40% root zone material spread one of the toughest jobs coincided with the blazing sun, and neither Owen nor Lee Blagden will be in need of any fake tan this year.

“Seeding is a big job, Between Lee and Myself we spread 49 bags of seed over the weekend weighing 20kg each. That is more than we would have used usually but with so much damage caused by the cold spell the extra bags of Aitkens Blade 7 seemed worth the effort.” Owen told us. “ It is the luck of the draw that we got the hottest weekend of the year so far, but at least we didn’t get rained off”. The club have returned to using Aitkens Blade 7, a grass seed we used in previous years, and Owen wanted to point out that Aitkens have been a massive help with helping the club manage its budget for the ground and that they deserve a mention for that.

Owen also pointed out that the investment in the triple mower that the club invested in had been a good idea, and that despite parking on fields seeming a problem those areas are in no worse state with the extra effort being put in. Farmstar helping out with loans of equipment again this year has meant that a lot of work like Verti Draining has been done in double quick time, and it is another thanks Owen wanted to get in.

So far the grass has been cut back to the crown, the root zone material spread and the seed dispersed across the site. This leaves one of the most laborious jobs to complete before the regular mowing can produce that carpet of green.

That horrible job is stone picking. Stone picking. Root Zone material is a mix of top soil and organic material and unfortunately the mix does include stones which are as damaging to lawn mower blades as they are to players on the pitch. The only way to reliably pick stones is by hand, foot by laborious foot.

“Stone picking isn’t the most fun job you are going to do all year, but it is one of the chain of jobs you have to do to try and obtain the perfect pitch for the team”.