With all the building work now complete, we can turn our attention to re-seeding the top field. We took up all the top soil and subsoil when installing the ground loops for the ground source heat pump. Although we kept the top soil and subsoil in separate piles, the field is a bit of a mess. It is about 1 acre in terms of area.
We asked the local farm if he could help us re-seed it and his advice was to harrow the land first to bring all the large stones to the surface. Then to walk up and down removing all of the larger stones. Well, the field was harrowed last week, so we spent quite a bit of time on Sunday removing the stones. We are using the pickup as a wheel barrow – moving it forward as we pick up the stones. By the end of Sunday, we have covered about half of the field and filled two pickups full of stone. We are just piling up the stone at the edge of the field as this will be used when we re-build the dry stone walls.
We picked up the grass seed from the local agricultural supplier in Honley (Keith Drake). A single sack of seed should apparently be sufficient for an area of this size.
But first the rest of the stones need to be removed.
By the time we had filled up the truck for the second time, we had got about half way through the job of removing the stones. While Jo is back off down to London on Monday, it is one of my tasks for the week to get this finished off so we can get the seed down.
It was hot over the weekend and there isn’t much shade in the top field. Hats and suntan lotion required.