Dave wrote:
Rick writes

I have a "garden" which has more nettles than anything else. Garden
is a sort of loose phrase, its a bit of a mess.

I want to start a multi year project, where year one is is get rid of
the nettles, year 2 is to do the landscaping and do the grass, and
then year 3 is to think about plants. I don't want my new grass
filled with nettles that I burried during landscaping.

Can I put a weedkiller down that kills nettles & roots ? Right now I
don't care if it kills everything, as long as I can grow stuff next
year I am fine.

Any recomendations ?

Yes, I'm afraid you can't treat it as a building project where each
stage is definite and fixed and follows logically from the others. I
think you should be aware that the weeds will not simply stop growing
in years 2 onwards simply because you weeded in year 1, and also 3
years is a long time to wait before you start using the garden.

I'd do 1/3 of the area every year, or as much as I felt I could take
on and do all the stages. So, pick a spot, get rid of the nettles in
that spot, sort out some landscaping, and plant it.

Year 2, you will have to maintain what you have done in year 1, and
you will get some weeds back around your new plants, but at least
they will have started to grow and you will get some benefit.

In this way your garden will evolve and you will get new ideas or
modify existing ones. If you have grass, then keeping it and planting
small shrubs in it will make it easier to maintain. Each year I
extend the dug area round mine as they grow, until finally the earth
circles meet up and all the grass can be removed and the maintenance
is very simple because I'm dealing with mature plants.

I once moved into a house where the bottom part of the land/garden had not
been touched in around 10 years. The stingy nettles were around 5 foot high.
Heavy clay land which had been concreted for dog kennels at one time
although broken and cracked now. My solution was to get a couple of weaner
pigs. By the time they had chomped their way through the vegetation and
broken up the concrete for me, they were ready to go into the freezer and I
was left with clean, fertilised land to plant.

--�
purebred poultry
www.geocities.com/fenlandfowl