Peg,

I typed Land Clearing into Google and got lots of info. I'll link one site here and you can search for more if you want to.

Back in the early and mid 1800s many millions of acres of forest were cleared in the eastern US. It was all done by hand labor with some help from horse and ox. Now it would be done by machines like a bulldozer.

Many settlers found that after all that work the land wasn't good enough for growing crops. Poor drainage, too stony, or the soil so poor and thin that after a couple years their gardens wouldn't grow. That's not to say that some settlers didn't overcome the problems with a lot of energy and determination.

So think about that before you spend a lot of money clearing the land. It may have grown back to woods because the land wasn't fit for growing crops. I don't know what the soils are like in AL. Your county extension service should be able to help. My county has soil maps of the soil in all the county showing the type of soil and potential.

Good luck

elrem

Here is a link that might be useful: Land Clearing

We have undertaken exactly what you are talking about. Because of the price of cleared land we could only afford wooded land. we have been clearing it for almost 2 years and last year was our first garden, it was about 1/4 acre. We cleared the land by cutting down the trees and selling it as firewood. We also heat the house with wood. We then had someone come in with an excavator to dig out the stumps. One problem you may encounter is stump disposal, some places don't let you burn them. Another is the fact that even for medium sized stumps you need either a large machine or a lot of time with a small one. A large machine will do a lot of damage to your lot.
Since we had a limited amount of money we opted for the large machine. Unless you scrape the topsoil before you pull the stumps, which is almost impossible, you are pretty much going to lose it. The machine will have to fill back in the holes to level off the land and it will compact the soil. We solved this problem by growing in raised beds. It was expensive but it overcame the compaction problem and since our soil was heavy clay we killed two birds with one stone.
We have enough cleared this year to expand to an acre, I just need the stumps pulled. Working a little at a time makes it bearable.
If you have any other questions you can e-mail me.

Thank you elrem (great link!) and fadefarm for the helpful advice!When this becomes more of a reality, I may get back to you with more quetions!
Peg

Rather than pulling the stumps we had ours ground out and that provided wood chips that composted nicely. But it is rather expensive unless you buy the grinder or get a quantity discount. We paid $50.00 a stump.

When I bought my place a few years ago, you couldn't walk through it without a machete to hack your way. I chose to go the bulldozer route, as all but a few trees were trash trees, and I needed cleared area for a horse pasture. The bulldozer started with a regular blade to knock down trees and pile for burning. They used a root rake attached to clean up the area of roots. It leaves most of the soil behind and just takes the roots. He cleared 2 1/2 acres in 2 1/2 days, and buried the stumps that hadn't finished burning (we were time limited)in the back pasture. I cleaned up bits of roots in the pasture for a couple of months, but was very clean and smooth for the most part. Had a really good operator come in on a smaller dozer later to build the house pad, and he got the yard smooth enough to plant grass the next day.

A stump grinder may get the stump, but it doesn't get all the feeder roots going out. To plant a garden, you'd need all those roots out, too.

we also have nothing but 14 acres of woods.spent a fortune on bulldozer to clear house site and road-not much money left over! i plan to cut treed southern slope for my garden and leave the stumps in-some as low as i can cut them and some at different hieghts for a plant trellis, to hold a bird bath or two and one for a tool hanger. old straw/hay bales around are cheap around here so i will do a no till/lasagna garden.they will eventually rot. this worked good for my blueberry patch-though the rows aren't too straight as i had to work around the stumps.

I cleared my garden from woods; it is a southern slope and had small to medium trees and heavy brush. I knew a heavy machine would wreck my topsoil nor did I want to pay for the use of one.

I cut out the trees with the chainsaw: firewood and a big brushpile outside the garden site (makes great habitat for small animals). I left flush cut stumps. Then I hired a bobcat with a front-mounted brush hog. This machine can manuevure anywhere and handle brush up to 8 feet high or so. Then the same machine with the rotovator to loosen up the soil. I should have sprung for the power rakeing but I didn't. Then I spent a couple days picking out all the rough trash. It being fall, I laid out my amendments, next spring I made my beds around the stumps. That first year I still think was the best, but probably it was just the mental impact of being my first time gardening also.

The small stumps are mostly gone now, six years later. In any case, since I dont rototill, they aren't a problem.