I've just had a fight with the garden and lost :(

[sebsmummy1]

Grrr I'm so pissed off.

For some reason I have decided I want to turn this very overgrown area of the garden into a veggie patch. We inherited a mature garden that had been very well tended by the owners before the man we bought the house from. It has all sorts of flowers and borders, fruit trees and climbing plants etc. the previous owner did pretty much nothing for the 5 or so years he occupied the house. Was often living away from the house and everything became a jungle in his absence.

There is an area about 7ftx7ft that was a large border which I assume was once very nice, but has ended up being a tangled mass of ivy, yellow plants, a few shrubs and some herbs, bluebells and daffs.

Went out there this morning bristling with energy and enthusiasm and a few hours later have given up. It's a total mess. We have hacked things back and dug up a shrub but every time i try and dig, my spade will hardly go through and when it does it's just roots, roots, roots. I have made little to no headway in three hours!

I am contemplating either ringing a company and asking for professional help or hiring some cultivating equipment. We have a mini rotavator but the roots tie it up in knots, not sure if a heavy duty one would be any better? Do you think we'd be better just bringing a company in to clear the area or would you persevere?

Thanks very much.

If you have clear soil, then weed seeds will land on it and germinate. I don't see that much point of a membrane inside the bed, tbh. I would just give it a good ole-fashioned dig to get out any vicious old roots that linger and then add loads of compost and manure.

If you use raised beds, you significantly limit the amount of work you have to do both in terms of digging and weeding. You can put membrane between them, rather than inside them, and use chippings for a path (this is what I have done at my allotment, and so far it is working very well to limit the amount of weeding I have to do).

Thought id update this and thank the MNers who recommended getting a mattock. I ordered one from Amazon as recommended and it arrived within a couple of days and has been fantastic.

I've taken a couple of photos of what it looks like now a week later. I've been tackling it daily and today DP and me just went hell for leather on it and cleared a load :)

I've started a new thread for suggestions of how to have the vegetable patch once clear. I'm thinking raised beds but not sure if I should have a large two tiered raised bed or even four smaller ones! I think we will be getting in a local person to build them and change the step sink have railway sleepers in my mind.