A Steaming Pile of Goodness

This week we took delivery of 45 cubic yards of compost made up from general yard waste that one our local waste management companies operates.  It has been around 7 years since I ordered compost and I forgot how lovely the aroma is.  I also forgot the steam that comes up when you dig into it.  Nothing like that fresh warm steam spilling over your face on a cold morning!

I will be using this to mix with sand to fill in a lot of large bare areas we have in the rough.  The compost will help retain water which will increase the germination rate of the seed.  In addition to making divot mix, I will also be mixing some to topdress fairways and traffic areas that we tend to have problems with.  One of the fairways we will be doing is 7 Lake fairway.  From what I have been told, during construction, the topsoil was removed from 7 Lake, but never replaced.  I hope to add some nutrient and water holding capacity to this fairway with the addition of compost.  The same theory is used for adding the compost to traffic areas.

Witch's Brew

Aeration of the greens at Cinnabar Hills is completed now and while making my notes, it is really incredible what we both removed and added to the greens.  On average, 500,000 plugs were removed from each green which roughly equals 112 cu ft of material (thatch).  In its place, we put down sand at a rate of 14 tons per acre meaning every green got close to 2 tons.  

In addition to the sand, and what I'm most pleased about, are all the amendments we were able to get out along with the sand.  Making the list surprised me and I wanted to show everyone just what we added to what I'm going to call our witch's brew.

- Eco-lit                                 - Dry kelp meal

- Greensand                           - Composted poultry manure

- Hard rock phosphate           - Soft rock phosphate

- Humic acid                          - Fulvic acid

- Sul-Po-Mag                        - Calcium carbonate

- Potassium                            - Yucca extract

That is a quite a change from the past when we typically just added calcium carbonate and potassium, but the results are seen with a quicker recovery.  We will also see lasting benefits from these amendments for years to come.