We moved to this place in 2010 and for 11 years, every time I walk up the driveway, or leave or come home, I pass by our ugly ditch. It's not really a ditch, it's an erosion problem. I pondered trying to fix it with my tractor, even did a video asking your opinion about what needed to be done. In the end my neighbor came to the rescue.
Matt owns Yardworx, a landscaping company, and he lives at the end of my driveway. My wife and I wanted him to do some landscaping for us and FIX MY DITCH! We told him that when he was in his off season in late fall/winter, to bring some equipment and get to work. He called us a couple of weeks ago and said he had a break in his schedule.
The old ditch had washed out over the years, some of it was pretty deep and I had put a bunch of field rock in the bottom to cut the erosion problem, but it was ugly and impossible to mow with anything but a weedeater, a sickle mower, or my old Craftsman push mower. I kept it mowed last summer with the push mower and it nearly killed me. I wanted it fixed.
We pondered three avenues to fix it. First, putting a drain tile in it to carry the water to the bottom of the hill. Everyone who responded to my last video said that was a bad idea. Those tend to fill up with sediment and have to be dug out and replaced. And the drain tile with rock and mesh around it is REALLY expensive. Putting that in a 600' trench might just break the bank. So that option was out.
We also thought about smoothing the edges of the ditch down and making it where I could mow it with my zero turn. That would have involved taking tons of dirt out of the area and establishing grass before the spring rains hit. I could see getting it excavated out, then having a huge rain and just having a mess. That option was out.
So, what we decided to do was excavate out a 6' wide trench, and fill it with rough creek rock. Matt brought out his mini-excavator and dug a trench out, then filled it with a fairly attractive creek rock, mashing the bottom layer down with the bucket, and then filling the ditch up with rock on top. I think it looks great and will convey a large rain down the hill without an erosion problem.
The rock will keep a lot of the vegetation from growing up, and I can weed eat or spray whatever comes up between the rocks. I'll run my zero turn along the edge to keep it mowed and I think it'll look a lot better.
If you have a long hill/ditch with an erosion problem, this is the fix. It isn't cheap, but it's what you have to do if you want to cure the problem once and for all.
LINKS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT...
The Tractor Fun Store: asktractormike.com/products-f...
Support the Tractor Mike Channel: / tractormike
Visit the Tractor Mike website: asktractormike.com/
Visit Facebook Page: / ask-tractor-mike-31211...
Copyright 2021 Tractor Mike LLC