Where to start?!

Hi all,

I did post an introduction post earlier so I'll just post the essentials here. My name is Kirk and we are based in the far south west of the UK (Cornwall) near PZ. We both have a farming (ish) backgroud. We have both owned poultry and gardened before but not like this.

We have just acquired over half an acre of land right next to our home and we COULD NOT BE more excited :D The land was used to grow some amazing veg and has a couple apple trees, a plum tree and a walnut tree. It comes with running water and a nice stone shed. It's been left to mother nature for over 7 years with the land only being topped a couple times a year. Now the time has come for us to move in and (hopefully) make it a thriving garden!

We would like to do the following -

A - Have an entire third of it as a veg plot, we plan on keeping it on a crop rotation so there will be enough room to grow a wide variety of crops.

B - Have about 20 or so chickens, which we have already sourced a coop and poultry fencing.

C - Maintain the tree and hopefully help them bear more fruit!

D - Have some king of nice set up in the actual pasture part of the land that's nice to look at and have as a family area, BBQ's and the such.

Now on to the problem..... Where do we start!

As the land was left, the rabbits have played havoc and the ground itself is pretty lumpy. The grass is covered in thistles, ivy and couch grass. Before we even start to till up the veg part and get things ready. What would you all advise/reccomend? We currently have been planning to have our neighbour up (a farmer) to spray off the grass, plough it in, then re seed it... But obviously don't want to mess up before the growing season starts!

We have (in the mean time) been clearing out the shed and cutting back some of the ivy. We need to get some bins up to start composting all this green we are cutting back.

Thank you all for your time!

Kirk

 

Hello Kirk, what an exciting project! You're lucky to have a farmer neighbour. Their help can be invaluable. I'd be wary about letting him plough in the weeds until you're absolutely sure that the perennial ones are truly dead. That can take a while, especially in the case of couch grass. I've been surprised here to see the farmers spray one day and then cultivate the next. There's no way that the roots of pernicious weeds like couch, bindweed, field thistle and mare's-tail will have been killed off. When the ground is cultivated, it just spreads the bits of live root around, making the problem worse. Perhaps (hopefully) English farmers have more sense or are not quite so in thrall to the sellers of weedkillers
So...first step would be to blitz the weeds and then get on with other jobs like fruit tree pruning while they die. It might take more than one application.
An alternative method, at least for the veg plot, would be 'No-Dig', where you pile on any organic matter you can get hold of and then cover over with cardboard, plastic sheet, geotextile or anything else that will stifle the weeds but allow you to plant through the top layer. It would allow you to get going more quickly, although if and when the top layer is removed, the weeds will still be there and will spring back to life!
Have a think about water and electricity.....they're best planned and installed from the beginning so any trenches etc. can be done before the fine tuning.
That's a lot of chickens! I'd definitely go for one or even two automatic (battery operated) chicken doors. They're a Godsend, especially in the summer when it gets light at silly-o-clock

 

Is it possible nowadays avoid spraying? I remember, that overdrown plots were ploughed, then you go pull the weeds out, make the beds, plant/sow whatever you want. And just hoe any emerging weeds afterwards. And I don't remember it to be a tragedy. My mum and me (at teen years) handled it very well. At year one soil is rich enough to grow vegs. Am I too oldfashioned if I suggest this mechanical approach?

 

Concisely:
Remove/fence out rabbits.
Engage farmer to harrow/top existing vegetation after you have ' spot weeded' perennial weeds such as brambles/thistles/docks/sapling trees if present. Mow down to 10mm.
Select your intended area to grow crops and cover with tarpauline/black poly sheet for the winter(4months) The exclusion of light will kill 90% of plants. (If your farmer is dairy, he will likely have scrap polysheet to give from silage)
For earliest plantings, uncover in Feb and mulch with 75mm of well rotted. FYM (farmer ?)

You may be interested in Youtube:
Richard Perkins series including

&
www.charlesdowding.co.uk

 

Have you been 'blessed' with the pernicious weeds mentioned above, @shiney ? A careless builder spread fragments of couch grass root over a small area of my 2 acres. It took over the lawn and had started on the borders when I decided it was time to call 'halt'. The bindweed comes in from the fields around, so little pots of glyphosate solution deal with that without affecting other plants. Perhaps it makes a world of difference when there are two dedicated and vigilant gardeners tackling the nasties, but I don't have that luxury

 

All I will say is, I took over some of my extended garden in 1983 and one third of it was just grass, couch grass, I spent that whole summer digging it by hand, I had a mound in the middle of roots and dirt as it was heavy clay and they didn't separate easily.
Thistles were a problem along with bind weed.
It was hard going and I'd never be able to do that now, but I got there, it was back breaking even for a 28 year old.
I'd go for spraying these days every time.

I'd shy away from anything that just chops up weed roots, its the worst thing you can do.

 

Thank you all for this information. We have been running around like headless chickens the last few days trying to be useful with our time. Ironically yesterday was the best day of the week so far.

Update -

I've been busy clearing out the stone shed of all the ivy that's crept in and some of the biggest spiders we've ever seen. They are now re homed in a shed next to ours (over the wall) that's well and truly abandoned. We kept a few of the smaller spiders around to help with other pests... We need to replace the door and frame (which should be done end of the week) and then we can make a start on... THE FIELD

The farmer came in yesterday and gave us his advice which was this.... The grass itself is actually in really good condition (nice and thick) there are weeds but he said with a few applications of herbicide (spot spraying) and topping the thistles will give up and start to look great next year. The lumps in the lawn are actually really dense growths of grass. Which will flatten with the use of a tractor (which we will be buying very soon)

Rabbits, rabbits rabbits........ we have a friend of ours coming up to help with the situation and will be setting up some rabbit wire once we have had the hedges trimmed back (thanks to the farmer who has said he would do it) The hedges themselves are blackthorn covered in ivy. They just need taming a little.

As for the lower part of the field (where we want a poly tunnel, compost area and tractor lean to) and our actual veg patch... is carpeted in ivy and is very lumpy (rabbit mounds and previous garden activity) he recommended we hit it with roundup and wait till it has all mostly died off. Then cover the veg patch with a silage sheet and leave until the spring. He will then come in with a mini digger in the next few days and flatten the lower part (not the covered part) removing bumps and setting up the foundation for our poly tunnel. Once that's done, we can start composting and setting up the lean to!

He also gave us loads of advice on growing crops, which was lovely. We took a spadeful of soil and it was just the nicest dark colour and crawling with worms. Couldn't be happier.

- What a motivation booster!

In the meantime we have been pruning the fruit and nut trees and looking for a small tractor.

Things are progressing (finally) We though it would be pretty neat to film a fair bit of this and upload it to youtube!

 

Also ensure that any strainer you put to a post is inside the compound as the rascals will run up the strainer and jump over into the crop, and then set up home again.

 

We have had a LOT done in the last week.

Another pal of mine has a mini digger. So we decided it would be best to pull the ivy out... we cleared so much land with that thing. We also levelled the parts of the field that were very ridged.



The shed is now clear and mostly spider free apart from the residents we'd like to keep to help with flies.

I'll upload before and after pics with a full update soon