Greetham Valley Golf Club Composting
We started composting about 10 years ago when I suddenly realised that the ‘green waste’ top dressing that I was buying in for our weak fairways was something we could produce on site.
The composting area we set aside was nothing fancy, just a clearing in the woods that was easily accessible from our tracks. We started it in one Autumn and tipped all our collected leaves in there along with all the vegetable peelings from the kitchen. Through the Summer, grass clippings were added with any cores from greens maintenance, scarifying debris, plus more kitchen waste. This was turned every 2-3 months to aid decomposition.
Before the next leaf collection, this pile (approximately 40 cubic metres) was moved adjacent to where ti had been, and so making space for the process to start again.
The original heap of compost was then left until the following Spring, apart from a couple of ‘stirs’ through the Winter. Then we hired in a 10-20 millimetre screen, and screened the material which was then immediately spread on to some of our fairways to improve soil structure.
The amount of material we spread would have cost us in the region of £3,000 had we bought it in.
The hire of the screen cost £400 for the week. And I suppose labour to turn the heap through the 18 months and to screen it would have been around £600. So, not a massive saving, but it gave us huge satisfaction to produce our own top dressing from what was essentially waste material.
We still collect and compost to this day, producing around 30-40 cubic metres of material. We don’t screen it any more, as our fairways can look after themselves. We use the compost when we plant trees or when creating beds around the clubhouse. Or mix it with sand to create a root zone for tree construction.
If we get to a point where we have far too much to store, we allow our members to come and collect it. F.O.C. of course.
For further information, please contact Adi Porter, Course Manager at Greetham Valley at adiporter1@hotmail.com
