Hi yall trying to stop erosion by building a rock wall.I have allready started i'd like some more opinions wether this will work or not before I do anymore work thanks.

Hard to give advice without a better description of what needs fixed? Can you explain your situation or even better post some good pics..

BGK,

He's the gentlemen with the small trout pond. He posted a pic of it in that thread.

Small Pond,

How about scattering straw or straw bales until the grass comes up?

cecil the reason for not spreading bails of hay is because it's very windy here. i've also tried this before and it hasn't worked at least for me the pond still got muddy after doing it. plus no one is selling this time of year. btw i put one more pic on the last forum this morning.

Rocks will help. They can be usefull at the ponds edge where it is to steep for anything else to work. I have found that you want to cover as much of the area as you can, meaning that if you put big ones down then fill all the spaces in between with smaller ones. The smaller the cracks that the water has to go thru the better. Now if you are talking about large expanses of ground, that is a different story because of the labor involved. Also, if there is alot of dirt coming into the area, the rocks will get buried quickly and then the silt will just wash over the rocks. Sometimes you can lay down and/or pin tree limbs to the ground to help slow down the water movement.

Best thing is as Cecil said, try to get some kind of cover growing as soon as you can. Tough this time of year.

Thanks wanted to confirm from the experts what i allready thought.

Tires, but they look trashy.

it looks like you have lots of trees, ever think about stacking up brush??

SP, looking at the pic, is your whole pond on the side of a hill? If so, how much hillside runoff do you get?

It looks like you have an area(in the center of the picture) that is barren and the runoff heads towards the pond. If this is this case, you might consider diggining a trench that redirects thats water so it doesn't carry all the silt into the pond.

I'm trying to think of cost friendly ways to help out. If you have areas that are running off into the water and bringing silt, how about a silt fence till spring? Might trying to find some old fabric/ bed sheets and use that like they do commercially. If you can't buy straw, cut some very tall grass off somewhere and place it on the bare ground. Weight it down with branches and limbs to help keep it in place when the wind blows.

It looks like there are alot of trees around, so it will make it tough to get a grass growing, even when springtime comes.

This doesn't really go along with your question of erosion, but of water turbidity. The one picture earlier showed the spring coming in and aerating the water pretty good. Could the force of that water be churning up the bottom of the pond? Might put some rocks at that outlet to hold the ground stable.

FnC, that's exactly where I was going. Ground cover may be difficult, so diversion terraces may also be a solution. My experience with water flow leads me to believe that water speed is a bigger issue than water volume. 100 gallons of water flowing at 50 GPM should cause more damage than 100 gallons flowing at 5 GPM.

no the faster the water in the pond faster it clears up it's about 4 ft deep where the spring water hits the pond thats definatly not the problem the pond gets muddy after a heavey rain yes the pond was built on a hill and only gets runoff from the banks that are bare and my foot path that goes 200 ft up hill to the house today i'll dig a ditch to try and divertt the runoff from the hill the super steep banks around the pond are going to get rock on them and in the spring i'll plant grass if it grows. heres a pic

As FireisHot was eluding to, you might want to add terraces above the pond. Examine where the flow of water is coming down that steep hill above the pond and slow it down. Might take advantage of some of that fallen timber for bracing and slow it down with rocks and screen like materials packed around them. I would be careful about backing the water up (like mini ponds) to much, because if one would give out then you would have a mudslide going into your pond.

as you can see i built the pond on a hill i know where most of the mud is coming in at so i'am not going to build another small pond to divert it. I aint going to dig if i don't have to instead ill take youre advice and build some cheap ways to stop the silt before it goes into the pond ill also dig a small ditch to send the runoff down to the ditch at the railroad tracks. ill use the rocks to stop runoff on the steep banks where i can't plant grass. thanks for the idea

The diversion ditch will probably do wonders for you, small pond. Maybe even a couple of them. You might also consider just randomly placing rocks around the hillside above the pond as a means of slowing down any water that gets beyond your ditch(es), kind of like creating a space where there is no single straight path to the pond, forcing the water to basically ricochet down the hillside.

Smap,if there is a commerical landscaping company in your area,they may have some remmants of landscaping fabric they will give you. You can use it to make humps or cover areas that are eroding. Good luck,if you have a rotiller to use,it would make digging much easier.