I was standing out in the front yard the other day and felt overwhelmed. My husband and I are planning our garden for spring and also for future years. We're planning ahead and dreaming how to use all this nice land we have.
This dream we have is going to take a lot of hard work and years. We have 2 acres of land that would be great for growing food producing plants to become self-sufficient. The first phase of our plan is to dedicate our time to our hill of a front yard. That's where I get a bit overwhelmed.
Pictures of The Front Yard.
The front yard is one big hill. My husband and I want to create a raised bed stair step type garden going downhill. On the left side (where the car is in the pic) we'll have a nice path with our raised beds on the right. We live in the TN mountains so if you dig down into the hill you hit pure rock. Raised beds is the best option for a garden because of the rock patches.
The problem we are having right now is from lack of care. Our house was vacant many years before we moved in. Our house is out in the woods so the woods have taken over the property. The front yard shows signs of having been gardened and cared for in the past but as of right now weeds have taken over.
View From The Hill To The House (path to go on the right, raised beds on the left)
As you can tell from all these pictures the weeds are out of control. I was hoping winter would kill off a lot of the weeds but they are still tall and all over. We are having a guy come tomorrow with a heavy duty mower to cut the grass on the hill. That will make it look better but only temporary. The weeds come back no matter how many times you cut them down.
Wood Boards In The Ground To Mark Off a Flower Box
I really don't know how to control weeds spread over such a large area of land. You can't tell from the pictures but the hill is really large. We have stinkweed and sumac trees that have taken over on the boarders of the hill. The worst are these plants I don't know the names of....they have these prickly needles. If you walk past one the needles come off in your pants. I went out in the yard the other day and ended up picking around 50 needles out of my pants. I hate these needle plants. They are hard to see because they blend in with the other weeds and yard so well and are short so you don't see them right away. There are so many of these plants that I can't even walk on the hill at times like right now before the grass has been cut. The only way to get rid of weeds is to get rid of the roots. But how do you do that in a large yard?
Does anyone have advice?
The Biggest Problems:
Overgrown plants with deep roots (sumac trees and stinkweed)
Needle producing plants by the hundreds covering most of a large hill.
Weed control in general.
Any advice would be appreciated. Taking back our yard from the woods is the hardest battle we will face. Our back yard is pure woods with a clearing in the center where they probably kept cows or horses at one time. It's hard fighting against mother nature to control what is growing when your yard has been neglected for many years.