What to clear, what to keep

I've taken over part of an old abandoned field earlier this year of my parents and moved here with my 2 daughters (7&. I came home to heal after some trauma, and to be here for my parents who are aging.

I'm concentrating on an acre of it for now, but there are another 3-4 if I have the time/energy.

My area has 4 concrete paths running north to south equally spaced, and another few overgrown gravel paths belong this. Most of the land is a mixture of nettle, thistle, ragwort, reeds, dock and buttercup. I have a static caravan across 2 of the paths. I've added in a natural clay lined pond with land drainage running in and out as overflow. I erected a poly tunnel and shed and have a cabin to rebuild.

I read somewhere on here that sometimes plants grow in a particular place as the land needs an element that plant brings. So what do I keep, what can I get rid of, is there a way to find out what the land needs? If there any use in harvesting these? They're all about 2' high at this point.

In the places where I have cleared and kill mulched, a few weeks later the 'weeds' are pushing through just the same regardless. It seems to be a never ending slog.

There is lots of wildlife, particularly frogs, toads, slugs, snails etc. I was hoping by coming here that I could help heal this bit of land that hadn't been taken care of and improve it. But it seems whatever I do, just either causes harm to the wildlife or it reclaims itself to it's overgrown spiky stingy mess asap.

I'm in North England and feeling really very disheartened by the whole thing.

For me, I keep all of what Mother Nature has given me.

Most of the plants you mentioned have medicinal properties.

You might want to learn more about natural healing using these plants.

I would recommend reading up on these in the Medicinal Herbs forum:

https://permies.com/f/9/medicinal-herbs

Also, you can earn some PEP BB (Badge Bits) with those plants:

https://permies.com/f/414/pep-natural-medicine

I feel that if you make peace with the overgrown spiky stingy mess you will find happiness.

If you are mulching and something comes back you are not using a thick enough mulch.  Try a minimum of 6".  Wood chips will go a long way to helping you heal the land.

Learning about mushrooms too will help.  Do you have any?

My advice is try nettle tea, harvest early in summer, week or 2 into june here in Canada. I put the nettles in pail of water and soak for a day or 12 hours? Then pour water in kettle and put some of nettles in with it boil and it's good. Other advice is you can eat thistle flowers when they're young, just spit out the covering. If theres a plant you dont like/invasive/worthless just rip it out.