I have just planted dandelions, purslane, millet, wild lettuce in my garden beds to improve the soil. Weeds bring up many minerals that the veggies don't. I am not sure where the hate of weeds ever came from. Weeds improve the soil. I noticed in a bed when mulch was thin, and the grass came up through it, the English peas did better than in areas with thick (weedless) mulch, so now I encourage my weeds. The peas were more productive, and healthier. I have a notil garden, so I guess that is why. Constant tillage promotes weeds. Nature is trying to fix what we broke. Nature abhors bare ground. The more bare ground you have, the more weeds you will have. The more you til the worse your "so called" weed problem will be. When I needed to plant into a bed covered in weeds, I weed wacked it. I am sure it was faster and easier than chemicals or pulling. This was only to allow sun to hit the newly planted seeds and to provide mulch for the hungry soil life. Mostly I did this, to install a trellis for my cowpeas. I hate digging to insert the poles, but this is a one time thing (until the poles rot), so soil life should not be too angry with me. I was not interested in "killing" the weeds, just making them shorter. I use soil plugs in the mulch so I do not have to pull the mulch back to sow seeds. Seeds will not sprout where plants already exists thicky, which is the main reason I thick we got the idea weeds are bad. Just cut back the weeds where you plant the seed and and area around the spot to allow sun to hit it. Pulling weeds or crops is a no no for me. The roots aerate the soil, and provide food for the soil life after they die. Rootless soil get compacted easily and is very bad for soil life. When alive, any sort of roots are teaming with life to help your garden. Gardeners should get more in tune with nature (and the way God made earth's garden) and promote life not death, by killing weeds, pests, fungus, earthworms and other soil life. When killing is focused on, the work load increases. If soil life is killed by gardening practices that do not respect soil life, you will have to use fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and more water. Pests only are attracted to sick plants. Weeds only show up where they are needed. Feed the soil, not the plants. I planted cowpeas directly in the sod. It performed better than the mulched bed. The American Indians only weeded right around the freshly sown corn seeds, to help it to sprout and to let it get sunlight, but when the corn got taller they did not waste time on such silliness. I think that weeding came into vogue from places with extremely short and cold summers, like england. I guess the theory is, that bare soil is warmer. Everywhere else weeding is really not necessary. I think to emulate nature is the easiest way to garden. Here is some info on nature's way. The Weeds as Indicators Of Soil Conditions The Weeds Friends or Foe? The Using Weeds as Indicators of Turf Management and Environmental Conditions Soil Indicator Weeds Soil What Weeds Can Tell You About Your Garden Soil Controlling weeds and pests Soil Healthy Naturally Weed Power - Weeds and What they Mean If you are at battle with your weeds and like everything to look neat and tidy, then the newspaper and mulch thing works great. I had no weeds when I have used that technique. Mulch is hard to come by here in July and August in Texas, unless I plan to waste water by watering the yard to get the grass to grow in the heat of summer. That is how I decided to go with the flow and use nature's way to keep the soil cooler and moisture in by allowing weeds to get tall. The longer the weed's roots, the farther down water will penetrate.

Realistically, I would start by cleaning up what you have. This is actually a good time of year to move rocks and brick and anything else the PO dumped back there. I'd move the things like rocks and bricks to an area for stockpiling for now (perhaps behind the shed) and get rid of any trash or woody debris. You may well find uses for the rocks and brick such as creating steps or walls or non-flammable surfaces around a fire pit, so you don't want to get rid of them for now. If you don't have a heavy duty lawn tractor with a dump cart, get one to help you move things around the property and mowing. Learn to ID poison ivy regardless of time of year, with leaves and without. Start removing it by pulling it wearing protective clothing OR plan on spraying glysophate (generic Roundup without all the other herbicides) after it leafs out in spring and repeating every 4 weeks or so with any leaves that reappear. You can still get PI when there aren't leaves, so treat winter PI with the same caution needed for the growing season. Don't burn it - you can inhale the oil from smoke and end up hospitalized - but instead put in plastic bags for disposal. If you are particularly sensitive, you can get it from your pets' fur or handling clothing with urushiol (the rash-causing oil in PI), so keep your pets out of it and wash contaminated clothing multiple times in a separate load from other clothing. If you have deer, mice, voles, squirrels, etc. you will have ticks. You can reduce the number by getting rid of the brushy stuff under the trees, but you won't get rid of them, even with a gravel barrier, because the mammals cross the barrier, bringing ticks. Get in the habit of checking yourself, your dogs, and your kids for ticks every time you come inside (just a quick check) and every night a very careful check at bath or bed time including hair, armpits, ears, and groin. Talk to your vet about tick repellents for your dogs and spray your kids' clothing (not them) with a repellent containing DEET. I can pick up a tick between the house and the veggie garden which is all lawn, and during the spring can find 5-10 ticks a day, but haven't ever (15+ years in our current location) had one embed because I am extremely conscientious about tick checks if I have been outside at all. It takes more than 12 hours for ticks to embed, so if you are checking every night, it won't be an issue. Next spring mark wet areas, perhaps with stakes so you know exactly where you have standing water, where it stays damp for more than a few days, and where you have running water. IME trying to change drainage patterns without heavy equipment is usually unsuccessful (and potentially illegal in a natural wetland) but you may be able to slightly modify them so you don't have standing water and mosquitoes breeding. You can plan to plant long-damp areas with plants that are tolerant of moisture. This winter collect information and photos of rain gardens (particularly for shade), visit web and local resources that have information on wetland plants, and find a bunch of photos of dry creek beds and read up on how to create them so they look tolerably realistic. Based on many years as a teacher at a school with natural drainages through the school property, kids love playing with shallow running water- damming it, floating stick or leaf boats, etc., so don't put your drainage under ground. It usually is more successful anyhow to do a drainage swale or dry stream bed than trying to do buried pipes involves a lot more knowledge since underground the water needs a consistent slope and somewhere lower to go to, and pipes need sizing for your largest storms. Also, burying pipes in that area will be difficult due to roots, rocks, and the difficulty of getting a machine in there. Next year after you have drainage patterns established and have moved out rocks and debris, you can do some leveling, adding soil where needed to fill holes that aren't part of your drainage pattern. If you want to keep healthy trees, don't put much soil over large areas of tree roots, however. Then spend the next year IDing what you have (photos on the Name that Plant forum are a great idea) and deciding what you want to keep such as good climbing trees, plants with good fall color or nest sites or whatever, and finding someone with a good reputation for thinning woodlands and the proper insurance. Only after next growing season will you have enough information to really get to work on getting the area thinned out and starting to replant. You should know that despite the inspiration photo you posted of the neighbor's yard, you probably won't get that result. Most grass doesn't grow well in shade, and you said you wanted to keep more trees. Also you have water issues unlike what appears to be drier in the yard pictured. You may do better to have islands of plantings with mulch over the other areas, though you can try growing grass and then changing over if that doesn't work. Good luck - it looks like this project will keep you busy for quite a while!

"Reasonable" is subjective, but Lula and Homer are both off the beaten path a little bit and might be affordable. Also, Oakwood and Clermont are worth a look.

Here's the link to the company under the Optional Link below-- should have linked it to begin with, sorry. I'll try slicing them thinner, and not going so long. I'm certainly ready to believe mine have been overdried. The ones from this company are sort of the opposite of other commercially dried fruits, though-- it's all very dry. Even their raisins are light and crispy. I much prefer home-dried, too-- that's why I'm trying to find something that my daughter can handle (without losing patience, which happens quickly!). Commerical raisins and craisins have been fine, but commercially dried apples, mango, pineapple etc. are either too chewy or have way too much added sugar. I pulled some of the banana off today when it was mostly done but still a bit squishy, and that went over pretty well. Kinda the opposite of what I was going for, but maybe I can partially dry them and store in the fridge (although that fails to meet the objective of having something I can tote around for a few days at room temp). Spray drying?! I'm sure you're right, not doable at home-- but what is it? Here is a link that might be useful: Just Fruit