Planting grass in the dead of winter

[ShenandoahJoe]

Yep, little six-inch gullies all over the place. I've been filling them up with rocks, to hold things in place until it dries enough to get the landscape rake up there. It kinda works. Hadn't thought of rye. That's a good idea.

I'm definitely headed for some serious straw purchases. (Buy stock now.)

Thank you all for your suggestions.

 

[charlz]

Straw is amazing. In the early fall I bought a bale of wheat straw for the critters bedding. The remainer I just kicked around towards the bare spots that are still around, or areas grass hadn't did much, this was late September and one rain later boom green grass is poking thru the straw! Wasn't even any seed there in the past 6 months or so!

It is the seeds still contained in the straw. I've had nice barley crops in my garden from mulching with barely straw. I just let it grow and till it under before it is far enough along to produce a viable seed crop. Makes a nice 'green manure'.

 

[EddieWalker]

Rye looks nice, but it's root structure doesn't do anything to hold the soil in place when it rains. The only way to slow down errosion is to slow down the water.

Gravel is good, especially if it's rough around the edges. I have some spots that I through in broken bricks, concrete and even cinder blocks. Then when it rains, it packs full of silt and fills right up with the rest of the ground around it. In a few cases, I've tossed in full sacks of concrete to build a dam. I had one gully that was going into my small pond. I blocked it off with concrete sacks and not its filled in a I'm mowing across what used to be a big gully. I never added any dirt to it myself, it just gets there on it's own when it rains.

On new areas, I get the seed planted, do what I can to stop the gullies, but wait until the grass aroun dit is grown in to do anything about the gullies. If you build them up level with the grass, they will just wash away. You have to build them up higher then the grass so the water will run over the grass and not where the gully used to be. In time, the grass will grow over the gully and then it's just a matter of how smooth or level you want it to be.

Eddie

 

[ShenandoahJoe]

Eddie, you'd said something like that on an older thread, which is what gave me the idea of filling up the gullies with rocks. That being something I could actually do at the time, I did it. I'll find out tomorrow how well it worked.

 

[rambler]

Rye looks nice, but it's root structure doesn't do anything to hold the soil in place when it rains. The only way to slow down errosion is to slow down the water.

You always have good solid advice Eddie. I'm gonna slightly disagree with you on this one.

In fall you seed down the rye. There is typically less rain in the fall, and you are typically finishing up the groundwork.

The rye sprouts, grows a bit, goes dormant in winter, comes up green as one of the first plants in spring, and keeps growing. Fast. With any luck at all, it will outgrow the rains & get itself rooted well and hold the soil in place. It's the best chance of anything green to hold down the soil.

This is in a very cold frozen Minnesota climate anyhow. And I realize it doesn't fit this situation as we are past fall for this person.

But for others that come across this situation, planting rye in fall - even if it's too cold for anything else to sprout - is going to help out a whole lot, if not solve the problem, come next spring. It's good stuff 'here'.

I didn't follow my own advice - had a shed built, and it was way too cold. I sprinkled some oats around the site, told my wife it's a waste of time & $10 of oats! Well then we had a real nice warm November, and the oats grew an inch high. Darn it if that had been rye, it woulda been 2 inches high, and it would have been great results in spring! The oats will help me a bit, but will be dead & not very deep rooted to hold very much....

Rye is good stuff. I just need to listen to myself.

--->Paul

 

[brin]

Paul, You are exactly right..5 yrs. ago we finished building our house in November and it was cold but we planted Rye on the areas we did not sod with Bermuda grass...and withing 10 days the rye grass was up and grew though the winter and prevented run off we would have otherwise had. When the soil warmed up in May we cut the rye and plowed it under and planted turf bermuda grass seed on the areas that were not sodded and it all worked very well..Rye saved the soild from runoff.