John here. . .

I have been reading the forum and learning for over a year, waiting on the day to get my house and pond built. I retired from 28 years of Federal Law Enforcement last December 31. Wife and I bought 20 acres, and are building our retirement house. Pond builder should be done tomorrow. Pond should be about 1/2 to 3/4 acre. I am going to have A Lot of questions, so here is the first. . .

. . . I need to get grass or weeds growing ASAP! Don't want to watch my dam wash away. As you can see from the picture, the bull dozer has packed the dam pretty well. The property is Sandy Loam with some clay below, that is intermixed in the dam. So, what would y'all suggest for getting some grass or weeds started. I ultimately want grass, but I'll take some weeds right now just to keep erosion down.

Has anyone ever used any of this? https://grotrax.com

Well. . . I tried and tried to figure out how to post a pic on here, but alas I had zero success. I will add the pic, if I can figure it out. But, I think y'all will be able to answer the question without the pic. I just would like to add a pic with my description.

Thanks for any help. . .

Welcome to the forum.
I just figured out a trick today! Take a screenshot of your pic, crop it, save and upload from your phone! In the attached I intentionally left a upper/lower border where the screenshot was cropped.
Game changer for me!

Edit: the crop line is very hard to see.

Joh, welcome to Pond Boss. I know of no real way to get grass started at this time of year.

If you have a little extra money laying around you can purchase a large sprinkler, trash pump and then seed and water the area. Go to Big Sprinkler.com. I tried the normal yard type sprinklers and was a waste of time and money. The big sprinkler works great for large areas. And for seed right now it's getting really close to the time for planting Elbon Rye (order from local seed and feed store) for feeding the deer around the pond, if you are interested in that. Stays green all fall and winter and can be mowed if you want.

After you seed,instead of just throwing straw down, use the rolls of straw matting. The rolls I used were 8'x120' I think. I only used it on the back of the dam. The grass started growing there much faster than the areas that I just seeded and threw straw. The wind was always blowing the straw away. It was a lot of work putting it down, but I think the matting helps protect the soil until the grass gets growing.

Jezreel, welcome to the forum. Beautiful part of TX. I hunted there for several years.

Where did you get the straw matting, and about how much was it, if you remember. I was going to use hay, but I'll try this if its not too expensive.

Wow! ! ! I Like those sprinklers. I certainly will be getting a couple of those for my new place. Thanks for the info.

on't go cheapo if you get the roll out straw mats. I bought several of Home Depot's online. They're not cheap...but they're made cheap. Those use a nylon mesh and nylon string...environmentally degrading...sure! No! Review comments such as rescuing snakes caught in the mesh. Deer hooves go through it, the deer freak out, your blanket gets drug around. I did not try the "Native American" brand woven straw...that's really getting expensive...and I'd already bought a thousand dollars of seed: prairie grasses and wild flowers mixes. Tried two years in a row to get the seed to grow. And last year, the BIG attempt, all planted in September with it raining hard everyday. As of now, I'm disappointed. Hoping the summer seeds will spread the plants.

I got it from a place called A.S.P. Enterprises, 38.00 a roll, and and 40.00 for a case of staples. I looked at it again and their 8'x112.5'. They are a lot like DannyMac said. You do have to staple them down good and tight or they will move a lot, and I did find a dead snake stuck in it.

Ha! I love mine to. They are well built and can do almost a half acre before I move it a little for another half acre. Really great during our droughts we have here in Texas.