how to start a garden

brokenhearts

its a bit of land full of weeds and i want to turn it into a garden.
the first thing i should do is.....
spray it to kill everything??

Lumen

What sort of garden?

brokenhearts

id be happy with levelground with grass
at the moment its an overgrown piece ofscrub land

Ultimate Seduction

You spray it and it will be a long time before it's a garden. Just cut it to the muck with a strimmers, then get your pitch fork and turn sod, give the sod a good wallop with the fork to shake of the excess clay. Throw your roots away.
Get several bags of compost and rake into the area. Job done. I did this exact thing with a very overgrown patch, about 10m X 10m took about 4 hours.

brokenhearts

is there a danger the weeds will come back? would spraying not nuke the soil and start from a fresh base.
if you say fork and strimmer them id better start this afternoon

Ultimate Seduction

brokenhearts wrote:

is there a danger the weeds will come back? would spraying not nuke the soil and start from a fresh base. if you say fork and strimmer them id better start this afternoon

Weeds will always grow back, you just have to put in the time to pluck them every weekend or mow it regularly if it's a lawn your after.

Weedkiller will take a lot longer than digging anyway, it'll probably take a few sprays and even then you would have a bit of digging to do.

The easiest but longest way would be to throw an old carpet over the area and leave untill next Spring

magicbastarder

brokenhearts wrote: »

is there a danger the weeds will come back? would spraying not nuke the soil and start from a fresh base.

spraying won't necessarily kill the seeds which are waiting (quite literally) for their chance in the sun.

Day Lewin

If it is reasonably flat, all you need to do is mow frequently: the grass will improve of its own accord.
Remove the grass clippings, which will tend to reduce soil fertility.
Grass is a plant that thrives on frequent cutting - it recovers well from grazing, in other words. Whereas some taller plants get disheartened from having their leaves repeatedly chopped off.
When the surface is short, you might go around with an old knife or weeding tool and scoop out the worst of the coarse weeds, eg thistle or dandelion, dock. But the smaller ones will stay in bounds better if you keep mowing and raking off.
You'll see buttercups and daisies, plantain and clover, surrounded by a mixture of grasses - why go to lots of work and expense (and poison) for a monotonous layer of ryegrass?
It's win- win!