Preventing Erosion While Seeding

[l008com]

I have a bit of a rain gulley between my street and my front yard. I'm pretty confident that if I put down some good dirt and get some healthy grass growing on that dirt, it will all day together and it won't wash away again. Previous owner had all sorts of weird stuff going on but I just want edge to edge grass.

These days up in the north east, we're in a drought more often than not. But with my luck, we'll be getting nightly thunderstorms as soon as I plant my grass here.

So is there anything I can do that will hopefully keep the dirt in place while the grass takes root?

I was thinking of some sandbags painted bright orange, placed in key positions. But they'd have to be on the street and that could cause problems. Plus I'd need a lot of them. What about some kind of biodegradable mesh of some kind? Is that even a thing?

I feel like this post really calls for a picture or two. I'll try to post some tomorrow.

 

[onionman]

From what I can tell, sandbags would work the best, but since it would be on the street, it could be a problem. Maybe try something a bit more natural like making a berm out of soil and dead branches (to help with soil erosion) or maybe some rolls of jute mesh? That could help keep the soil in place until the grass takes root and you wouldn't have to worry about it on the street.

 

[l008com]

Well today we had a 3 hour long severe thunder storm. I don't think anythign would have prevented some fresh dirt from watching away today. Hopefully I can get lucky with the timing and when I fill this in, it will be during a dry spell where the only water will be the stuff I spray on it.

I really want to fix this up soon myself, otherwise the town will come take care of it. And their 'taking care of it' means a really crappy half-assed looking asphalt curb.

 

[l008com]

Well this is SUPER annoying.

I get home the other day and that entire gulley and up a few inches into my yard is now asphalt.
Keep in mind the property line is in the street already. As pictured I have about a foot or so of street in my yard. Now I have two feet or so.

I had sourced some rocky soil for the base layer, I was about to go buy a yard of nice topsoil. And I was going to solve the erosion issue by simply using sod instead of grass seed. Or at least, one strip of sod directly against the street, and in the spots where there was still exposed dirt beyond the width of the one sod strip, then I'd just seed. I was not going to use full rolls, I was going to cut them into strips no wider than 12".

It would have looked real nice. Now it looks like shit. The town didn't hire a paving company do make this semi-curb from asphalt. They did it themselves without proper machinery. So it looks like total garbage. Now I did call the town and ask them to put a curb in here, BUT that was:
- Before I had the property surveyed so before I realized just how much of that is actually my property, not the towns
- SIX YEARS AGO and I never heard a peep!

They didn't notify me in any way that they were doing this. I just came home one day and it was all paved over. I am extremely annoyed.
That said, I probably won't do anything about it. It's probably not worth the hassle at this point. What's done is done. As this new curb crumbles over time, I'll probably dig it out by hand bit by bit and replace it with nicely sculpted lawn.

I am so annoyed.