I'll tell you what I know based on my experience. When working T&M it helps to know the details of who you are and what you're trying to do. Or who's giving you advice and what are they basing that advice on. So, here's what I'm dealing with and what I use:
For me, I understand the drive time to some extent. I'm 90 minutes (one-way) from my property. I
could make it down after work, do my thing and drive back after dark but it's not ideal. It just depends how badly I want to go and do what I need to do (like - I made that drive when I had to repair a busted window, but I wouldn't do it for simply mowing the lawn).
My field is about 1.5 acres. I have some trees planted in it and the field isn't a regular shape.
I have no heavy equipment. That means I use a 2 gallon pump sprayer and an over-the-shoulder spreader that hold about 30 lbs. I have an ATV and I have bought a drag behind harrow rake from tractor supply. It weighs about 150lbs easily and can be dragged spikes up or down depending on my needs. NOTE: It does not dig into the soil (with your soil and this type of farming you don't want to disturb the soil much anyway).
As for what I know about your situation:
The height of the weeds changes everything for me too.
You also didn't mention how big of an area you're trying to do. That plays into the response a little.
Plus I'm making an assumption that you're like me and don't have heavy equipment. That's what drew me to the T&M process and it works well. There are only a few basic concepts and then there are more detailed preferences you will read about and develop on your own.
A lot of this kind of work is based on sweat equity and I think you're about to experience that. So here's what I would do at my field/with my tools/etc:
1. If you can get there before you plant in order to start to control those weeds you will be happier. To tackle what you've got there are a few approaches; you can mow, use a weed eater, or a scythe to get those weeds to a more manageable height (lower than knee and waste high that would be optimal for what I am recommending). Once you have it cut somehow, I would spray to get at the greenery that is lower down. That one trip should help out a lot.
2. A second spraying would also be helpful and you can do it the day you plant but if you're not familiar with glysophate you need to know 2 things:
- It works slower than you might expect. This means you start to see results 5-7 days later.
- You don't want it to be windy when you spray or if you have things that are are not wanting to kill, they may suffer (I killed an apple tree).
3. When you plant, I would make sure that you get seed, fertilizer and lime down. It's OK to just buy bags of this stuff at a local gardening center. That's what I do. Then I strap it down on my ATV and drive it up into the woods (to my field). One you get it all down I make sure that I drive over the entire field with my ATV tires. It takes a long time, but I methodically cover every inch to get the seed compressed into the soil as best that I can.
4. Your goal is really to build soil in all of this. Sure you are planting things to likely hunt over. But at this point, you should plant things (as suggested above) that you know you will spray off/mow or will died on their own that will lay down, rot and build up a layer of organic matter on top of the clay crappy soil that you have (speaking of me this time). These things are wheat, rye, oats, etc. It's a slow process. It takes a few years but then it gets easier (not easy but less difficult to get things to grow).
These photos are after 4 years of my T&M work. They prove to me that this works. During this time I had great stands of buckwheat, some failed years and learned a lot about what the deer in my area like, how/when they use the field and so on.
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If you stay on this site long enough you'll see me put out that I have found huge success with horse feed (rolled horse oats). They grow well in almost any condition. The animals love it. It's cheap at like $15 for a 50lb bag. So I always throw that down in my mixes of other things. It's helpful to keep track of what you've planted and when (over time you'll forget what you did exactly 3 years before).
For me, this year I planted:
- Chicory and kale at a rate of 3lbs per acre
- Wheat at 60lbs per acre
- Crimson Clover at 2 lbs per acre
- Rape also at about 2 lbs per acre
- And my all-time favorite: Rolled Horse Oats (feed) at 50/lbs per acre
To finish things off:
- I dropped 120lbs per acre of 10-10-10
- I also dragged the field flat with ONE pass of my harrow drag rake (I did spikes down just to open up the thatch a little. I am SO GLAD that I did this based on the heavy rains that came an hour later).