Creating A Safe, Accessible Leaf Pit Area

During the very wet winter the large leaf pit, at the top of the sports field, had become inaccessible to the tractors, with tyres spinning and getting stuck in the mud. Unable to safely load the trailers using the New Holland with the grab attachment, the leaf mould had to be loaded into the trailers with shovels, see blog entry 20th January 'Mulching The Rose Garden'. The team spent the day correcting the problems the winter had caused.
The New Holland tractor, with the front loader attachment, was used to level the area in front of the pit, removing the risk of loaded trailers tipping over in the future.

Once the soil had been removed, holes that had been created were filled with rubble and the wacker plate used to compact them.

Over the day, 20 tonnes of hoggin was tipped into the area, each trailer load levelled by rake and compacted with the wacker plate. A slight camber was created in the centre of the area to allow the water to fall away to the edges and into the leaf pit, removing the water logging that had caused the inaccessibility problems.

By the end of the day, a new, safe, accessible area in front of the leaf pit had been created.