To find this really weird and annoying

Yes to shouting from the front door at them.

But put a fence/bush/pots/gate (locked) at the side to seriously impede their path.

Where abouts in the country are you? When we visit my in-laws in a different part of the country, I often get weirded out because people just appear at the massive glass bifold back doors, tapping on the glass and peering in. They're a variety of friends/family and I don’t understand why they don’t knock/ring on the front door but just seems like the “done” thing in their area.

Your diagram is so good that I think you should be employed by Mumsnet to create all the diagrams.

If I were you and I saw them coming past the bedroom window, I'd start moaning really loudly, oh that's it daddy, right there daddy. I'm sure that would get rid of them pretty quickly 😂

I'd put a sign up at the side of your house "Welcome to the AGM of the UK Society of Polyamorous Naturists. Please make your way around to the back for the festivities"

Leave it up for a week and hopefully they'll stop coming around (or perhaps you'll get more than you bargained for)?

MrHarleyQuin

I know what you mean. In real life I can spell, but the minute I touch a keyboard I turn illiterate.

I am now mortified that I wrote "sewed" and not "sowed".

I will have my RHS Practical Horticulture Level 2 taken away!

A+ diagram

This would really annoy me - it's not like a side door near your driveway that most family and frequent visitors would know to use, they're going all around the back of your house...?!

Unfortunately I feel that trying to 'block' their route would not work, and they'd only move the bin/plant, or point it out as being in the way. You're just going to have to politely 'request that the front door is used'.
edit: As to the ‘weeds’, start spouting facts about the huge decline in UK’s native insect population and soil quality, just bore/alarm them to pieces and they’ll never mention gardening to you again in fear of you bringing up rewilding or ‘natural lawns’, etc.

10/10 and a gold 🌟 for the diagram, BTW!

I would explain that you are cultivating the dandelions as a salad crop, and you are very disappointed at the low yield.
You are considering cabbages and potatoes next year.
Excellent diagram.

Excellent diagram.

I would just not answer the back door to them, ever.

If they know you are home, go out of the front door and walk round to them looking bewildered.

Ask them to please use the front door.

Being charitable, maybe that is what the previous owner preferred, or what they all do. I know my grandma never used a front door as it was for posh and formal visitors. Riff raff used the tradesman's entrance at the back.

But it's still intrusive so I think you can nip that in the bud.

Fabulous diagram!

Tell them you are doing wildlife gardening.

I actually am doing wildlife gardening but am also actually quite a lazy gardener.

I sewed meadow seeds and planted plug plants into the front lawn to actually get more "weeds". I made a bug house in a shady corner. I planted a small tree in the middle of the lawn. I have tons of really tall flowering plants like giant daisies, foxgloves and teasels, with a ton of hardy geraniums and so on as ground cover. You cannot see any soil, it is covered with plants. I leave seed heads on for birds to eat and weed/dig infrequently. I leave dandelions for the goldfinches to eat.

Most of the gardens locally have neat lawns, and borders with tiny plants with lots of soil around them and no weeds. The neighbours probably think my garden is a mess.

@user29863 Stop taking in their parcels and tell them why you are refusing. They are rude and entirely unreasonable and probably nosy as you said. I agree to stop answering the back door and putting a sign up. Good luck.

Sorted

When they go to the back door, open the front door and call them.
Then say “use the front door please Cecil”. If he mutters about it, point out that he has to pass the front door to get to the back door.
It’s quite possible they like the opportunity to peer in your windows.

I agree with other posters and would block the side path with large plant pots in the first instance but I would also get a nice high side gate installed too, for general security reasons too. I can't imagine living in a house where anyone could walk round into my back garden.

As others have said just don't answer your back door.

Either:

1. Shout from inside or through a window telling them to come to the front,
2. Go out the front door, round to the corner of the house and then ask them to come to the front door (and don't continue the conversation until they do; or
3. Just ignore them if they go to the backdoor.

I would also put a sign on the back door that says "please use front door"

Put your bins on the path to block access to the back, that'll further annoy them 😅

Just remembered we rented a rural farmhouse with 2 ndn's not quite attached. 1 ndn strolled in on the second day we were there. As in into the kitchen. Apparently the previous tenant had no issues. We padlocked the courtyard and she reported us to the landlord...

Not sure where op keeps her horse as mentioned up thread....
Shove a huge potted plant in the middle of where they access your back door...

Well I'm old and I can categorically say this would really annoy me. I like my privacy and I would find this stressful.

When I was younger we lived on a new build housing estate and the elderly woman a couple of doors down used to walk across the open plan neighbours back garden and just walk straight in my back door and into my kitchen . Apparently where she lived previously this was normal behaviour.
I solved this by locking the back door all the time, even though I preferred to keep it unlocked for my own convenience. Could you OP just not answer the back door if your neighbour keeps coming round to the back if the house? If they regularly didn't get an answer there they might get the message you don't want visitors there.
As regards your garden. I'm a keen gardener but I've regularly had neighbours with extremely messy over grown gardens. But I would never comment on them. Their gardens, their business. Same with your garden. It's yours to do what you like with, within reason of course. If you used it as a rubbish tip for old household items etc then it might be different if course.

your diagram is brilliant well done.

I think it's probably habit -or something like that, maybe the previous owner preferred to use back door -my mil now deceased, used to like us go down side of house through a gate, around the back of house, and knock on back door which she had to open, rather than trouble her to open front door -her living room was about equidistant between doors, her own kids had keys, it was mostly neighbours who had to come in this way, she seemed to have something about the door bell. Anyway when your baby is bigger you may need that gate anyway be starting to make plans , meantime talk to neighbours when they do it tell them it's disturbing baby's naps or something can they come to front door. how do they approach other neighbours houses.

They probably consider it informal to use the back door and formal to use the front door. Put your bins on this back door path as an immediate solution. You could get one of the fence planter systems to put across the path or put a chain across the path at a height they would see. Or a sign saying wet paint avoid this path.

Oh, and when I got sick of the umpteenth bowling-green-style lawn obsessed neighbour offering us weed killer (perfectly well-tended garden, but I was happy for lawn to have daises, buttercups and clover) and chemical ‘lawn treatments’ that I bored them rigid by giving them vast tracts about biodiversity until they desisted.

This was a village where I think literally every man appeared to spend his weekends washing his car and mowing his lawn. A ‘good lawn’ looked like a short-napped green velvet carpet, and needed Constant Vigilance against moss, daisies etc.

First of all that's an ASTONISHINGLY good and detailed diagram, I am gobsmacked, I think you have a future career beckoning in diagram making. ⭐
Secondly yes they are being weird but maybe they had a back-door relationship with previous incumbent and haven't quite clocked that it's inappropriate to keep doing the same thing with new people?

Thirdly I'm nearly 70 and I wouldn't give a flying fart about the state of your garden or anything else.
Fourthly - temporary solution - get a couple of heavy plant troughs across the path and plant them up. Ones put too close together and too high for them to get round or climb over.
They are verging on being cheeky fuckers and need nipping in the bud.