field to yard

[BrettFF205D]

Hi, I'm going to be converting a field,(tons of weeds, brush) to my 2 acre yard. How do I do this? Kill the weeds, till em under? box blade the entire mess? Just don't know what to do with all those weeds and brush. thanks, brett w

 

[BB_TX]

Depends on how much effort you want to put out. I would recommend spraying everything with a total plant killer such as Roundup, wait till everything is dead, then thoroughly till it and rake it smooth. Then you can plant whatever type grass you want. You will still get some weeds from seed, but you can handle that as it appears. That wouldn't be too hard on 2 acres.

 

[s1120]

depending on how nice you want the yard, if you just keep mowing it the grass will takeover. This is what I am doing to my land, and after 1.5 years its looking good.

 

[looch]

That's my approach, too. This will be the second year and it already looks a whole lot better. Most weeds come to maturity later (read higher) than grass. So, by keepinig it short, grass is the only thing that has a chance to propagate.

 

[Thomas]

I would bush hog than take a rake attachment and remove what was cut,than continue to past over the area until it was smooth and reseed.

 

[beenthere]

I totally agree with pbenven and s1120. I have converted about 4 acres from forest (brush!) to lawn, and never tilled or seeded. Only mowed it first with a rotary cutter and then went in with the garden tractor and mower. Anytime you try to dig up the soil (and especially when using roundup), you allow seeds of every description to germinate (some are monsters too). If there are areas that are too rough to mow, then treat them with a blade or tiller (I found a rented 3pt Harley rake worked great to smooth out the rough spots) and sow some grass seed for quick recovery. But an occasional broad leaf spray treatment (I do it in the spring and in the fall) will keep the broadleaf weeds in check and you should have a beautiful lawn.
Another 4 acres was converted from field to lawn by just mowing and spraying. If you don't like to spray, then just mowing works too. Fortunately the weeds are green too.

 

[s1120]

You know, some of the weeds look darn nice cut down. I did have to grade a few areas of my yard[woodchuck hills] but mostly just keep it mowed. The key is to mow high, and often. This lets the good grass, choke out the bad weeds. Granted its no golf corse, but does look nice.

 

[kevincook]

I am just finishing converting 4 acres from a field to a lawn. I have been working on this over the last five years. There is a huge difference between a field that is mowed short and a "lawn" in my opinion. Where I have planted grass it is very soft and dense......it feels good to walk around on in bare feet (that is my test). The areas that have been just mowed short look good from the street and to most people it looks like a lawn, however, if you go walk around on it you can see the difference. You have to decide what YOU want. I wanted a yard that was good for the kids to play football and lacrosse on and the mowed field didn't give me what I wanted.

How I did it.

1. bush hog everything short and then mow it like it is a lawn until you are ready for step two. In my case some areas where mowed like this for four years.

2. I rototilled everthing until it was "light and fluffy". The light and fluffy part is important or step 4 won't work.

3. Grade the entire area with a york rake. I did this to fill in any ruts and to generally level the area. If you don't do this any ruts that you had before you tilled will still be noticable after step 4.

4. Wait for rain. The rain will settle the dirt down and leave all the rocks sitting right on top of the ground. It still amazes me how well this works. (remember "light and fluffy")

5. Use york rake to remove all of the rocks from the surface.

6. spread grass seed (twice as much as the bag tells you to). I found that by putting down a lot of seed the lawn fills in much quicker and I have many fewer weeds to deal with and less erosion than if I only put down as much seed as the bag says to.

Good Luck it is a lot or work. The up side is that you get plenty of seat time in your tractor.

FYI the 1.5 acres I did last year took me about 75 hours of tractor time and maybe 20 other hours.

 

[WVBill]

I've taken the same approach as several others with my 3.5 acres of field. I agree with beenthere - "the weeds are green too". My neighbor across the road has put in a lot of time and money trying to turn his field into a golf-course resort lawn and from thr road you can't tell the difference between mine and his.

It's all in what you want to end up with - and how quickly you want to end up with it.

 

[s1120]

You are right, and parts of the lawn I will be working a bit. but most of it I will just keep cutting. For me it needs to be tough enugh to withstand driveing on once in a wile. But you do have a good point about the tractor time./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif