Overgrown Garden

[wigan pixie]

The house I'm now in has a small, completely overgrown garden. The main culprits being brambles. I would love to get it in a good enough shape to grow some of my own foot. It also has some small neglected apple and pear trees.

Can anyone advise me on the best way to clear the brambles and grass. The only problem is that I'm on my own (with a small child) and I have a bad knee (from an accident years ago) and not a very strong back (also from the accident). Would I be better just to pull out what I can and then cover the ground for a couple of years, or should I try to build a few raised beds, cover the paths in between, and just pull up which ever nasties manage to make it through?

Any ideas or advice are very welcome.

[room101]

I would love to get it in a good enough shape to grow some of my own foot.

.

[wigan pixie]

Sorry, I'm mean grow my own food. I've had the flu for almost 3 weeks so I blame that, rather than my love of having my feet tickled, for the error.

[Millymollymandy]

Aaargh brambles - I spend all winter ripping or cutting them out and they spend all summer growing back again.... actually they are really hard to rip out of the ground even if your back is good. Some people paint glyphosate on them although I think you have to do that several times to really kill them. We've got too many to do that and anyway it's mostly in the wild areas of the garden.

I think if you keep cutting them off every time they start sprouting the plant will eventually weaken and hopefully die. The only other alternative I can think of is to dig them out which would be extremely hard work as their roots go everywhere. I doubt if covering the ground will kill off the roots either although that should kill off the grass.

[pureportugal]

I think if you keep cutting them off every time they start sprouting the plant will eventually weaken and hopefully die.

i also think that's probably your best bet.

we have about an acre of brambles that we have to keep strimming, and strimming, and strimming. it's the horses' new field so i had hoped that if we strimmed them once the horses would eat the young shoots as they came up, no such luck

[MuddyWitch]

Having just de-brambled AGAIN due to a neighbour's garden being badly overgrown, so they arch over, run under or just generally appear, I would say that buiding raised beds and attacking them as they come through doesn't work! And my poor husband dug every root out...or so we thought, before we built our beds.

Your best bet would be to clear a small area compleatly, then grow spuds as the earthing up helps to deter weeds.

Other crops can be grown in containers; I grew carrots, runner beans, herbs, onions, garlic and lettuce five floors up on my little balcony, using a combination of grow bags, builders' buckets (from a skip as the handles had snapped) and one small bought trough(about 6'' wide, 2' long and 5'' deep, for the lettuce)

Even a baked bean tin will do service once, to grow a garlic...once you put your mind to it you'll start seeing free containers every-where! The biggest expense will be the compost, though.

MW

[bodrighy]

You may be able to pull some up and the cut back and train the rest and use for the berries. The young shoots that have suckered often pull up easily but bet dug as they are true survivors.

pete

[sleepyowl]

Unfortunately it is going to have to be the good old digging method unless you can borrow a goat or a pig but in an urban setting that may not be advisable, good luck, I'm busy digging myself.

[happy place]

i would agree just keep digging and cutting them back or if it is safe to do so you could try burning them out hopefully the heat would distroy alot of the roots