Leaky weirs

So, finally I get to show and tell....... we have Peter Andrews standing in the Creek and looking up and down - he sees stuff that we don't!

No. 1 Weir: We started at a road crossing and this is just above where we are starting to see some erosion happening. We laid a large hollow log across the bed of the creek and then proceeded to fill it with sand - lucky it wasn't me on the end of the shovel, or it would have taken longer!

We then filled it in and under with smaller logs and drove in some wooden stakes on the bottom side of the log, with the it angled against the current, to anchor the log. We then laid some berry bush across and layered it with sand to hold it down.

We will get some rocks to place at the back (downside) to help hold the log. Peter says that we need to get grass growing on these straight away, so this one we planted para grass at the base, as there was a small puddle of water already there. He suggested Kikuyu for this type of thing, or if you are lucky enough to have them, Willow trees are best. Use these as the stakes as they should grow. Or just have some seedlings to plant in the pile.

No. 2 Weir: there was a log already in position, so we just put in another to form a V shape. This one we will still have to finish - we'll put sand and berry bush again on the tip of the V and some rocks.

No. 3 Weir: standing at No 2, we looked down the creek to see where the next one should be. To do this you look to see where the grass level changes. And the amazing thing is, when you walk to that spot (and No. 4 was the same) there just happens to be an old tree across the creek. Mother Nature is already trying to heal it, so we are just giving it a helping hand!the log below the white one was there originally.

We just kept laying logs across the creek and where they had a fork, we would place the fork into the standing tree to jam it in. These logs were found in the very nearby vicinity.

The next weir was just on the corner that you can see above.

Weir 4 we did much the same as the previous ones, logs across and anchored against the tree that was conveniently next to the creek and the one in the creek.

We used wire quite a bit in the building process, either to tie logs together like above, or to tie them to the living tree that happened to be handy.

Peter did suggest that with all our weirs and other works, the secret is to get grass growing on them. None of them were actually higher than the bank, just as high. The idea is to slow the water down and make it spread out into the bank. If we can get the dirt or sand to fill in around the logs and then get grass, and he suggested kikuyu, to grow, that will help hold it all together. 

I do have to confess, that we haven't actually finished them all off yet. We will before it rains....and then I'll take some final photos, as well as some after photos when it does rain.