Clearing ground so it doesnt revert

The bottom 20 feet of my garden is fenced off and has a greenhouse and shed; it was completely overgrown when we moved into the house so I used the petrol strimmer to take it down to ground level. The area slightly slopes off into the brook at the bottom of the garden and has top cover from large trees growing along the other side of the brook.

The ground was thick with grass, mint, stinging nettles, woody shrubs and leafy ground cover. How do I clear the ground so that I can prep it for planting pumpkins, carrots and cabbages? When do I start? I don't want to clear the ground now and have months for the rubbish to grow back. Should I use chemical weed killers?

 

Best wait till it starts growing again in the spring then spray it off with Glyphosate, that goes right thru the plants and kills the roots as well.

Takes a few weeks to work, so you won't see instant results.

Then dig out any woody shrubs that it doesn't work on.

You'll have an ongoing battle with weed seeds that you'll have to keep on top of for some years, so might pay to grow things thru a membrane for a while

 

So I guess that means I miss a complete growing season, or will I be able to clear the ground and then plant straight away?

Is there anything I can do through the winter?

 

Thats great, I will start off seedlings in the greenhouse the same time as spraying

 

I never use poisons of any kind on my garden. I would pull up the woody shrubs, then use black plastic to smother out the weeds all winter. I mulch with cardboard, news paper or paper feed sacks, then cover with wood chips. I cut a hole in the mulch to insert the plants and don't have to deal with so many weeds.

 

Glyphosate needs a fair amount of good top growth to work.
My thoughts are that spaying before early June is not going to get a good root kill.
And I've found really tough stuff like brambles often need a second application.

That said, i think the timetable for replanting with veg is going to be a bit tight.

I think I'd be out there now making a start digging it over and removing all roots that you find.

I know it's probably a large area but I'd concentrate on small sections, leaving the rest for the glyphosate treatment a couple of times next summer.

Rome wasn't built in a day.

 

You could combine some of the suggestions, dig up roots, spray it off, cover it and grow stuff in pots on top for the first year

 

That's how I've always dealt with overgrown ground, although portions can be left uncovered for varying times (part or whole season) to let weed seeds germinate before hoeing them in and either planting well established pot/cell grown plants in the open ground, or covering that first flush of weed seedlings with membrane and planting through it. Combine that with patches of spuds regularly earthed up will eventually eliminate most of the weed seedbank.

Something else I do, but mainly early stuff brought on in tunnels then put out on membrane covered areas for early crops, so space could also be used for late(r) season planting.