I've just come in from my first attempt at hollow-tining forking our
grass path. It was not very successful! Apart from being damned hard
work, the biggest problem was that the tines did not self-clear and
became blocked after only two or three 'insertions'. In effect I was
just ramming solid tines into the grass, which gives no better result
than using an ordinary fork, which eventually I went back to and which
was much less work and much quicker.

Either it's a symptom of just how compacted the grass had become, or
that it was the cheapest hollow-tine fork I could find, although the
tines are tapered so should self-clear. My wife tells me that in a
past life they had an expensive one that suffered exactly the same
problem.

Are there any tips on using a hollow-tine fork that makes it easier to
use, self-clearing and more effective? I had the feeling that mine
would only work properly on grass that was sufficiently uncompacted
that it wouldn't need hollow-tining in the first place!


--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net