Have you ever wondered what goes into oval preparation and maintenance? Anyone who loves their lawn knows it's a challenge to keep grass alive and green through winter. Our sports grounds are kikuyu grass. However, even this hardy grass struggles in the colder weather with hundreds of studs trampling it. It doesn't like heavy rain either as the ground gets so compacted its roots struggle with no wriggle-room.
Back in the day, by the end of the winter season, players would be running on dirt. To keep skin on knees and grounds green, for the past five years we've been oversowing the grass at our main sports precincts; spreading the seed of a cool season grass that grows to protect the kikuyu through winter.
Eurobodalla has 28 sports grounds – we wish we could oversow them all! But it costs about $35,000 per year to keep one field in premium shape, so we stick to fields used all year round – Batemans Bay's Mackay Park and Hanging Rock, Captain Oldrey in Broulee, Gundary Oval and Ack Weyman Oval in Moruya, and Narooma's Bill Smyth Oval.
They're no million-dollar Sydney Cricket Ground but we aim to keep our multi-sports fields at a premium rating for a regional area. And we've got our own skilled green thumbs who know the sports grounds like the back of their hands to make that happen.
In March they head out to assess the grass and do the math on how much seed and what machinery is needed as well as the timing to begin oversowing.
We hire a vertidrain - a big drum with spikes to decompact the soil. It rolls over the ground and pokes holes to allow air and moisture into the root zone prior to oversowing.
Mid-March, the team loads up the tractor to disperse seed of cool-season rye grass. From May onwards, we fertilise and keep on top of irrigation – a recipe for healthy grass.
In September as footy wraps up for the season, the grounds are prepared for the transition back to the warm season kikuyu grass. Who said watching grass grow was boring?
- This story was first published in Council's quarterly newsletter for residents, Living in Eurobodalla. A printed edition is delivered to the shire's 26,000 households.
- Download a copy of Living in Eurobodalla: June - August 2023 (1.0 MB)
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