Weed Killah!

Its about that time. Plants are up, weather is getting nice, so I spent the afternoon mucking around in the yard. The part of the lawn ripped up from the patio productions is still very thin and needed to be heavily weeded, and I laid down fresh seed.

We also have Bamboo growing on the property. As it says in the link its a veraciously invasive weed. Everybody in the neighborhood lets it go wild on the margins of our land as it makes a marvelous privacy screen in summer when our yards get a lot of use. That being said this shit WANTS to grow EVERYWHERE. Generally I just go out once or twice a month and pluck the errant stalks. This keeps it more-or-less at bay, but its a constant job.

So this spring I decided to attempt to dig up as many of them as I could. I had pretty good luck, but HOLY shit did it take the fight right out of me. I was sitting on the patio having a drink and taking a rest break and I felt like if I didn’t have lots more to do, I could have shut my eyes for a spell.

BUT I WAS JUST WEEDING the yard! Reminds me of last summer when I *mostly* Eradicated our mint beds. After a few hours of pulling up that shit, you’ll want to do something else!

Still the yard looks really nice now. Let’s hope I really made some headway with all the extra labor!

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0 Responses to Weed Killah!

  1. Critter says:

    about the only way to eradicate that stuff is to till it up, and not with one of those rental weenie tillers, but a big commercial sized tiller. i’ve been fighting the english ivy for 15 years so i feel your pain.

  2. bluesun says:

    Spraying weeds is one of my favorite jobs. We’ve got a nice 3 gallon backpack sprayer, which is just about right for our few acres. The best part about it is that I always have “I AM BECOME DEATH DESTROYER OF WEEDS!” running through the back of my mind when I do it.

    Oh, and I know a good way to get rid of mint: invite all your friends over for Mojitos!

  3. Robert says:

    I wish we had bamboo….instead, I get stuck fighting blackberry vines on 5 or 6 acres. Not too fun. The only chemical that kills them pretty much kills EVERYTHING, which isn’t a good thing on a farm, so I have to use a machete.

    What I really need is a good flamethrower…

    • Mopar says:

      Robert may have been joking about the flamethrower, but he’s on the right track for certain situations. I have a torch that it’s made for killing weeds. You don’t need to burn them, just heat them enough that they wither. Of course you need to be careful how and where you use it. Great for sidewalks, curbs, driveways, foundations, etc. Not so good for lawns and fields, lol.

      • Weerd Beard says:

        With these motherfuckers even a blowtorch likely wouldn’t stop them as I was snapping off taproots down 10-15″ into the dirt. You burn the tops, the roots will just call for re-enforcements!

        They say the only way to rid your yard of them is to use herbicide as they flower which will kill the plant and prevent re-seeding.

        But the problem with that is A) I like it at the yard margins as a privacy screen, and B) The neighborhood is lousy with them so even if I nuke my population the adjacent yards would re-populate mine!

        We’ll see how this works.

  4. Gen says:

    I know your pain… none of the horrible stuff on my property, thank goodness, but it’s *everywhere* at some of the places we do landscaping. Digging up the roots is the best way to get rid of it, pesticides that kill it will kill everything else, and they’re not terribly reliable at that, and tilling it will most frequently just break the roots and make more of the stuff. Careful with that method… Good luck with the others.

  5. bluesun says:

    Another thought: You could import some panda bears! I hear they love that stuff!

  6. Greg Camp says:

    Bluesun beat me to the suggestion of pandas, but you could move to Arkansas. Here, our two major crops are rocks and poison ivy.

  7. Rob Crawford says:

    Until I saw you knew about mint, I was going to, um, “helpfully” suggest you combat the bamboo with it.

    I kinda miss mowing a lawn that was part mint. Great smell.

  8. Jake says:

    Be glad it’s not kudzu! That would have covered your house by now.

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