Erosion Control Update

Back in January, I decided that I had to do something to control the erosion on the property. Several years ago, the previous owner had clear cut the land and anything that remotely passed as top soil had long since washed away leaving us with nothing but thick, red clay (hence the name). Worse yet, there was a huge gully running down the middle of the side pasture that had developed over the years. Looking back at the old Google Earth pictures, that gully was here long before the land was clear cut.

This is just a quick update to my update earlier this year. After one of the rainiest summers on record here in the Midlands of SC, I am proud to say that my retention dams have, for the most part, done their job and remained strong. There are a few spots where the water washed over the dams and eroded little bits of the dam, but for the most part, they have done well to help control the flow of water down the hill. I have even managed to get a little grass growing on them to help hold them in place. My focus now is to improve the quality of the soil so I can get a better stand of grass growing, but that's a subject for a later post.

That's the good news. Now for the bad... While the upper part of the hill is doing well, down at the lower part of the hill the gully is beginning to re-emerge. It's steeper at that point and we had several large downpours that did some particularly bad damage to my work. I've got to get the box blade out again and do some more work. This time, I think I am going to have to reinforce my work with rock gathered from the property. Time to call out the troops to start picking up rock!