What is the best way to clear a garden of everything?

Question

I am talking about roots, plants, ant hills, leaves, and rocks. Oh, and no fire answers please.

Answer 1

You shouldn't have waited so long.  Tough punishment, huh?  Get some gloves and work hard.

Answer 2

Ben the answer is simple Hire a Dozer

Answer 3

Hard work! A herbiside such as Round-Up will kill most plants, but it will do nothing for roots or insects (neither will fire for that matter). Rocks either have to be removed by hand, or a dozer.

Sounds to me as if renting a small dozer will be your best bet.

Answer 4

First attack the fire ants with appropriate chemicals.  Any disturbance will cause the colony to attack......so kill those suckers before you begin!  

Bobcat could probably do everything you need, except the roots.....depending on why type roots.....tree? shrub?  May need something with a shovel for the roots.  Hire it done or rent the equipment.  Your back will appreciate your thoughtfulness.......otherwise you and a wheel barrow....and a truck or dumpster.

Answer 5

What you are asking is either an open ended question or just not enough info. You want decomposition in the soil so old roots are good. Has it ever been a garden before? If not  then the cheapest least labor intensive way would be to go rent a Bobcat $300.00 for the weekend and you will have fun doing it.   Probablly take you an hour. Then bring in new soil

I do this for a living.

Pea's

Lancaster

Answer 6

If you just want the garden cleared, I would get out a metal soil rake and use a tiller to break the soil, then rake though it to get the weeds, roots, stones, etc, out of it.  The tilling will kill most of the ants by ruining their nests, but you can place jar lids around the garden with a mixture of 1/3rd cup of water, 1 Tablespoon of sugar, and 1 Tablespoon of Boric Acid (a powder in the first aid section of the pharmacy).  put that in the lids and put some pots over the tops to stop other animals from eating it.  The ants carry this back to their nests and it dessicates the whole lot of them.  So you can put out the lids with the stuff in them, wait 48 hours, and then run the tiller, by then, there should not be ants in the garden bed anymore.  But sometimes new ones move in or a nest survives - in that case just put another lid of the mixture nearby and in two days they will be gone and you can rake the top of that ant hill over and it will stay raked.

Answer 7

When you say best, do you mean cheapest, quickest or fastest?  In general, cheapest is some newspapers laid down with black plastic covering the area with stones, bricks or blocks holding it all down until death has occurred to all living plant material under it, usually, about 4 weeks.  Roots and stones will have to be moved manually, unless you rent some equipment to do this part.  Quickest, is renting a bobcat and going at it for a day, scraping whatever is not wanted, away.  Clearing the area of all plants, grasses, stones, roots and leaves.  Easiest might be spraying a product intended to kill anything that its sprayed on and waiting for it to die.  Of course you will have to clear the rocks, and roots manually.  For myself, in clearing areas on my property, I have used physical labor (hiring others even), burning of materials (we used charcoal to clear some roots far from the house), have sprayed some grass and weed killer (prefer not to use this EXCEPT when absolutely necessary, but we had to rid an area of poison oak, poison ivy and vegetation in order to access it in a meaningful way and to manage that area properly in the future.  Have used the dig it up and deal with it method (hard work) and the lay it and forget it method (works well for not in a hurry stuff), like a future garden when spring comes, I lay down the newspapers and plastic and let nature clear an area without herbicides or machinery.   I usually hire out stuff I don't want to do, as most of the time, I am doing things in stages.  The only thing I have needed a bobcat for is the patio I am presently working on under the deck.  The rest has been done by help and do it my self.  I like the hiring of others for dirty and hard work.  I can manage paying for an afternoon of digging and its cheaper than renting something.  But sometimes, the cost of professional piece of equipment is well worth it to complete things quickly and easily.  Hope this helps you with your project!  Good luck!