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.
Yup, it looks like some sort of tiered system with layered fill will be the best. That's a really steep incline!
The word tiered was what I was looking for. I plugged in a bunch of search terms into google but tiered garden brought up what I needed.
Yay! Glad that helped. The Google can be really persnickety on searches.
One step at a time otherwise you will overwhelm yourself. You may be dealing with weeds for a few years no matter how you try to remove them.
Very true. It might take years to get the weeds under control.
I wouldn't know how to attack this problem either. I love your house and your hill and your vision!
My parents had a similar situation. They live in the country and had invasive buckthorn and weeds everywhere. Many of their neighbors put in sod and dumped chemicals on them, which is terrible for the environment. I'm not sure why people think they need golf course lawns in the middle of the forest, to be honest.
In my parents' case, they let natural ground covers take over the largest portion of the yard. It keeps the weeds down and had a secondary benefit: honey bees seem to love it. Well, maybe not a benefit if you want to run barefoot through there when it's blooming!
For the woodier things, maybe a goat? Haha.
That's a good idea. We have some areas covered in vine plants that seem to control weeds. I jokingly suggested we get goats lol. Cheap lawn maintenance. We'd have to build a tall fence down the hill though. There's a busy road at the bottom of the hill.
Cardboard and mulch for the weeds. It may take a few years to get a handle on all of them. I think a tiered system would work best. It is more work but I think you will be happier with the results in the long run.
Cardboard is a good idea. I'm using it for some raised beds on another part of the property. I like the idea of a tiered system. It might take some elbow grease and hard work but it'll look nice.
I know from the lake side of my property, hills are always a challenge! I would shoot for manageable, small goals...baby steps to start! Good luck, Marx.
Thanks! Baby steps for sure! The hills are so steep. It'd be nice to make them useful though instead of weed magnets.
@marxrab, your first chore will be to decided how many beds you want to start with. I would suggest 2 or 3 for the first year, expanding each year thereafter. You can kill off the weeds and native grasses by using cardboard, and/or papers (newspapers) with mulch over them. Also, keeping them cut down very low will help keep things in line. If your beds will truly be raised above the ground you could put down the paper/cardboard and use rocks or gravel to mulch. That could then also be used in the walkways. Have you thought about terracing down the hill. Sure it would be a lot of work, but in the end worth it as you would have flat terraces to garden on and the mulch, etc., would not roll down the hill. It could also make snow control easier in winter.
That's a good idea. I don't think we'd be able to do more than 2 or 3. I think your suggestions about the newpapers/cardboard might be the way to go. We can focus on a small section of the hill to control at first and expand next year. I think maybe we need a path covered in mulch or something else to walk on with raised beds on one side. Thanks for all the help.
So glad I could offer a useful suggestion. Good luck
My place has
about the same slope. I build raised beds on contour on greenhouse mat.
Those are some nice raised beds. Thanks for the picture.I really like the idea of building boxes like this somehow. Maybe build boxes like others said...as a tier to look like a staircase of raised beds up the mountain.
Nothing too it.
Hugulkultur mounds on contour. Sepp holzer is the guy who pioneered this method in alpine terrain.
My place has
about the same slope. I build raised beds on contour on greenhouse mat.