Wicket maintainence in the Paddock

Today I purchased some cheapo grass seed from B&Q two quid fifty a pack and started the process of establishing some new growth at the batting end to start off with as it's sustained quite a bit of damage. So, first up Joe and I gave it a good rake and loosened up the surface and got rid of any leaves and stones that were on the surface.

Once it was raked I seeded the area quite heavily using virtually a whole packet. Once that was done I used the rest of yesterday bucket of Top Dressing to cover the seeds over and level off any areas that looked as though they needed some attention. Surprisingly the surface was relatively dry despite some rain earlier in the day. When the seed went down it was warm (17.5 degrees C) so only a little moisture and the continuation of this fine weather should see the seed germinate quite quickly. I'm guessing 7-10 days.

So this image above is how it looks once the seed had been sown and the top-dressing put down.

The other end needs a lot of work still and I'm going off the idea that maybe we bat at this end next year. In this section here were we run- in you can see that there's a lot of wear. But in addition to a fair bit of repair work there's also a lumpy uneven section on the left hand side so over the last 2 days I've been gradually raking the lump away and raking it over the run-in area as a whole just to get it a lot more even. So far that's working okay and I'll continue to spread the earth around and get a large area flat. I suppose if I do this and do get it flat there maybe an option next year of batting at this end - but it's not something I'll be doing intentionally.