[gunner]

We started a veg patch in our garden about six years ago, the land had been rough pasture land prior to this. Even after six seasons, if we dig over an area and and leave it, an excellent crop of docks, buttercups and other "field" weeds quickly pop up, admittedly not as much as our first season but still enough to be annoying.
  We have managed to purchas a 1/2 acre field next to our garden (again rough pasture land) and want to extend our veg patch into part of this. What I'd like is some advice on getting this into shape for growing, would getting it ploughed be a good idea? or will this just bring years of weed seeds to the surface?, or the other option might be to mow it right down, cover it with cardboard and lay 6 inches of compost on type, a sort of no dig system to stop the masses of weed seeds in the ground constantly germinating as we've had in our original patch. Perhaps theres another way we could try? just looking for a good soloution  to the problem

[Yorkie]

I'd have thought that ploughing or rotavating it will just chop the weeds into lots of smaller pieces and therefore plants, although it would make the soil easier to dig when you get to it.

The no dig approach is endorsed by many. But that's an awful lot of cardboard and many cubic tonnes of compost for 0.5 acre.

Interesting challenge though 

[New shoot]

It would be a lot of compost. I believe Charles Dowding gets lorry loads in from green waste recycling sites, so it may be worth investigating that. Much cheaper for huge volumes I would think.

Even if you are going no dig, ploughing might be a good option. There will be a million weed seeds anyway on the surface and it would break up the soil and get some air into it.

You could also try planting through weed membrane in some areas or if you can’t get enough compost.

I don’t know your thoughts on weed killer, but a one-off spray before ploughing would definitely help with killing the roots of buttercups and docks.

[gunner]

We're only going to use a part of the 1/2 acre,  not sure how much yet and I think we'll do a small portion at a time so we can save up cardboard and we can buy bulk compost at a reasonable  price locally. With our garden I did spray off the vegetation first and then put down weed suppressing membrane or black plastic over winter to kill off as much as possible,  we then rotovated  the ground and planted. I think we'll do the same prep again but go the no dig route with the cardboard and compost which hopefully will hopefully solve the constant germination of all the weed seeds that have built up in the ground over many years

[Goosegirl]

I'm in favour of the no-dig approach so as to minimise the number of weed seeds that you'd bring to the surface if you dig. As long as you do an initial cultivation to get the ground aerated it should work.

[snowdrops]

I'm in favour of the no-dig approach so as to minimise the number of weed seeds that you'd bring to the surface if you dig. As long as you do an initial cultivation to get the ground aerated it should work.

Have to disagree re the aeration GG. The worms will do all that is needed,after all rain forests don’t get dug & ‘aerated’

[New shoot]

Rain forests or even deciduous woodlands have a very different soil profile.  They benefit from years of decaying organic matter shed by trees and little foot traffic by humans or large animals.

Pasture land gets some manure but also a good stomping from the beasts grazing there.  You can make really deep no-dig beds on top of it and grow successfully, but I think Gunner’s plan of weed kill, rotovate and then do no-dig will yield better results.

https://smallfarms.cornell.edu/2021/07/pasture-soil-compaction-a-slow-but-stealthy-thief-of-pasture-productivity/