Dealing with lots of weeds/over grown grass

accidentalcrofter

Hi folks

I'm nearing the end of tidying up a croft I recently bought -  the place was a bit of a dump - previous owner had a massive bonfire with all his belongings which included loads of broken glass, metal through the soil, batteries, plastics, all sorts of junk, there was an old abandoned caravan and a derelict portable office type building which I have finally managed to get removed!

The croft hasn't been used / looked after for several years and is over grown with weeds and old cattle grass - I'm wondering if the best option here would be to ask a local farmer to plough it all for me and start fresh, but my only concern is what to do with all the grass/weeds that get racked up,  how to get rid it all? 

Would i be able to compost it all (I dont have any composting experience yet) ? 

Its 2 acres worth.

Thanks

Liriodendron

What are you intending doing with your 2 acres?  

Buttercupdays

How exciting! How do you intend to use the space?

It might be better to see if someone could mow it for you, then you would have a chance to see it properly and make a better assessment.

One of the problems with ploughing or rotovating is that many weeds can regrow from tiny pieces of root, so it can make the problem worse. Once it has been cut down, regular mowing can keep things under control. Many large weeds don't withstand being mown well, whereas grass does, so that alone should bring about an improvement. You can find out what you've got and decide how to treat it.

All you need to start composting is a space to dump all the unwanted greenery. My garden is a little under 2 acres and I can tell you there will be a lot of it!

Everything will rot down given enough time and this will happen most quickly if you can get the right balance of soil fungi and micro-organisms. For this to happen you need about a 50/50 mix of green and brown waste. Green is grass and leaves etc while brown is things like hay, straw, autumn leaves,wood chippings, cardboard and paper. Larger bits of wood, sticks etc are brown too, but take much longer to rot down, so are best either shredded or stacked separately.

It can be hard to get enough browns, especially at this time of year, but you can add all those unwanted flyers and egg boxes or larger boxes torn up to help improve the balance. If you can add these in layers and/or turn the pile to mix things up it will speed things up a bit, but I just make huge heaps and wait for the beasties to get to work. It's surprising how fast it goes down and what you get left with eventually should be good stuff for improving your soil. Good luck

Fairygirl

I agree. Your plans for the space will dictate what you do, but rotovating can make things much worse. 

Buttercupdays

If you are able to get hold of some big, black silage bags, they are great for covering the heaps and helping them warm up, so they work faster and are more likely to kill weed seads and roots. Purists avoid adding these, but if I threw out all the bits of weed roots with soil attached, I wouldn't have any garden left!

Slow-worm

With our horse pasture, we had to reluctantly spray the vast amount of docks and creeping buttercup. Aside from that we just mulch mowed and harrowed. It hadn't been maintained for many years and the ground was compacted. 2 years later we took a whole field of really good hay, so it's maybe not as much work as it seems. 😊

Fairygirl

That entirely depends on the location @Slow-worm. There aren't many crofts in most parts of the UK 

Slow-worm

Fairygirl said:

That entirely depends on the location @Slow-worm. There aren't many crofts in most parts of the UK 

It was only about 3 acres, so more croft than farm, lol!
Why does it depend on location?

Fairygirl

A croft is  specific to Scotland - they don't exist in England or Wales. 
Plants grow differently, or don't grow at all, in various parts of the UK. The north of Scotland, or the islands off our coast [where most crofts are] aren't quite the same as the Midlands or the south of England, for example, so what you grow depends very much on the climate.
The NW is totally different again, in that respect, from where I am. To use your example-  growing hay here in the west of Scotland isn't easy at all, which is why most of it is done further east - Perthshire in particular. Different climate   

Dovefromabove

@Fairygirl (as a sidestep from the original query and just as a matter of interest if the OP will excuse me) am I right in thinking that a Scottish Croft has agricultural ties and has to be used as such … not as an ornamental/recreational garden? 

Fairygirl

There's certainly legislation around them @Dovefromabove, although I think nowadays they can be used in different ways because of the huge difficulties with making a living in most situations. I expect it will vary depending on the location and the agreements in place too. 
It's not an easy way of life at all, especially in the most remote places - and there's plenty of those!