Sloppy Straw

 
The weekend was nice I went to the taste of autumn festival early Saturday before the crowds arrived I bought a squash which I hope to bake for a thanksgiving dinner here in England.  The squash was grown by the gardens trials team the pumpkin to the right was at their stand.  The trials team grows different cultivars of certain crops or flowers to rate them on certain qualities.  I bought a bon bon buttercup spuash which is a sweet winter squash.  Saturday afternoon I went on a girls day out with my roomies and we did a little shopping.  Sunday I went with Leila to the gardens to collect plant material for a plant indentification test.  Well today was my first day in the turf department.  The first thing we did was move some large square bails of straw that were not used during the taste of autumn to a covered area.  It was quite difficult not having small enough equipment to fit into the small polytunnel we put it in but having large enough equipment to handle the large bails.  Everyone was quite impressed with my pallet fork directing skills.  One of the guys said you must have done that before yah I just thought to myself nope not my first rodeo! Thanks Dad for the mad pallet fork skills turns out my farm knowledge has come in handy!  The rest of the day was spent raking up all of the straw we threw down last week to try and protect the turf.  The straw did a pretty good job protecting the turf but it is a pain to take back up.  Below are a few pictures of some of the damage that was done to the turf and beds from the taste of autumn.  After getting up the bulk of the big stuff we went through and blew it with the leaf blower to get the smaller stuff as well as attempting to fluffy and air the turf.  You could tell the difference the turf we treated is looking pretty good.  We still have a lot of straw to get up.  My supervisor said today he wanted to be done by Friday I hope he ment with repairs not straw because I don't think I could handle four more days like today.  I really enjoyed my first day on turf everyone is really friendly and my supervisor has really made an effort to get to know me, help me, and he seems really interested in teaching me what he knows.