In my ever continuing quest to control runoff water on my property and make it easier to mow, I am at the point that I need to do something to my front ditch. I need to stop the erosion from my front yard by building a 2-3 foot tall retaining wall on both sides of the ditch, and place pond liner in the bottom of the ditch to prevent weeds from growing and cover that with large river rocks.

I am leaning towards just using 50-100 pound boulders and stacking them systematically. The other option, and considerably cheaper, would be to use the 80 pound bags of QuickCrete,

The part I cant wrap my head around is how does the QuickCrete cure properly without being wet all the way through??? Anybody ever done this and what was the outcome? How long did it last?

I’ve seen it done by several people; seems to work. The cement turns to a large stone in a bag.

Made for what you want to do. Biodegradable bag. Supposedly, you can order it at Home Depot or Lowe's.

Ive seen it done as well. Drive rebar through the bags and into the ground to help stabilize. not sure how it hardens all the way through. but ive had bags sit in my garage for a while that got hard after time. Broke them and they were solid all the way through. I guess humidity?

I have seen a few of them on lake Bridgeport, they seem to be soft and crumbly, there’s always little bits flaking off. I also don’t care for the look, especially when they are new and you see bag remnants left on them.

It works, about 30 years ago a man near Lawn Texas did it, on the way to McBee Cemetery and it is still there. He placed them on both sides of a creek/ pond. Still there and looks awesome.

I do not know,if he did the rebar thing, but that sounds like a great way to stabilize it.

Post pics.

I find it hard to believe you could ever be ok with this entire process as well as the final product BigPig.
You can’t even handle this sort of thing!

They work great moisture will get to the middle without any issue. Stagger the bags and use rebar hammered in every few feet.

If you want to do it real cheap and the Pollock way done in Wilson County, old tires to help slow the water down.

Is this on a subdivision lot? I would make sure its not in any easements etc.

Parents had a 2-3 foot tall retaining wall along the front of their lot for years made out of landscape timbers. It really served now purpose in my opinion and the neighbors on either side had the same elevations and their yard just sloped instead of having a wall and looked better. I tore out the retaining wall years ago and sloped it off a little, grass took over and it is fine.

This^^^^

get the 5,000 psi sacrete it has more portland in it and will be a lot harder than the 3,500.

do like ccbirddogman posted and just use a screwdriver or similar to punch the bag (only punch about 3-4 holes in the centerline) and use 5/8 rebar to pin it.

will do what you want and last longer than bullfrogs pig gif did.

I do not want to sidetrack this thread, but can I use sacrete to lay in mudholes and drive over them?

I’m with Mr T, in that I need to raise the bottom level of a creek crossing, and I wondered if the RipRap Quickcrete could handle a bit of driving the RTV900 or the ATV over it before it solidified. I’d have already done it, but was afraid I’d tear up the bags.

I know you well enough you'll never be happy with the sacrete and it'll be a huge mess to clean up...do it the way you want the first time. SOD might even be an option...I've to a pretty steep bar ditch in front of the house and with the grass holding I haven't gotten too much erosion.

when I’ve used Sacrete the gravel is separated from the dust(chemical) and I have to mix it with water to keep it from crumbling. Don’t understand how leaving it in the bags and stacking them works.

If you lay them in a hole full of water and leave them a couple days, they'll solid up enough to drive on. If you lay them on dry ground and pray for rain, the bag will tear the first time you drive over it.

It just does!

Picture of the area would help.

This isn’t really a matter of erosion control, it’s a matter of this ditch hasn’t dried up in the last 2 years and I have to weed eat a 10x100 every week