I tried torching weeds once several years ago and had the same results. It doesn't kill the roots and they grow back. I bungeed the propane tank onto a luggage carrier and rolled it around rather than carrying.

Pulling and digging are my preferred methods. I've used a backpack sprayer for poison ivy, but now that they've found Roundup in breastmilk I'm giving some thought as to how to reduce its use even further.

One of our vegetable gardens in the back got overrun with weeds last year, and I'm using cardboard to suppress them. Home Depot and Dollar General have been keeping me supplied.

The worst weed on my property is the smallest: germander speedwell. It arrived a number of years ago, and has taken over the lawn, rock garden, and perennial beds. Because of this insidious groundcover, I've had to give up most of my flower gardening. It can't be pulled, and it's too widespread to be dug. I tried spraying one year, using a special spray (Roundup won't work on it), but kept forgetting to spray on the prescribed schedule and gave up.

For areas where you want no growth for an extended period, there is a herbicide 'Pramitol' that inhibits all growth for at least a year.

Yikes, Pramitol is a soil sterilant...a terrible environmental hazard. It's only to be used on parking lots or other areas where zero living things exist. Any trees with roots that have grown under the paving are in jeapardy.

Yeah, it is so effective that it is not permitted to be shipped air, it has to go ground only.

At some point we're going to have to get smart and outlaw most of the herbicides and pesticides. They do so much environmental damage.

Pramitol sounds like Agent Orange.

I agree to less chemical use, but I'd keep some pesticides around for things like bedbugs. A lot of pesticides hurt bees and that is going to cause a lot of problems.

Yikes! If you did that (torched weeds) where I live in SoCal, you'd go to jail.

Hi there Ole Forgetter,

I don`t much care for people with forked tongues ... but there are times and places for most things.

Have you tried a garden tool with one shaft and a forked tongue - (looks like a "Y")?

Arrange it so that one of the forks at either side of the top of the Y arrives at either side of the stalk of that dratted weed - and in this case, as in many, just a little push achieves one's goal.

Much easier than hauling a tank of propane, with accompanying assorted gear.

There's no reduction in our inventory of precious petroleum.

There's no addition to pollution ... and even the plant breaks down and returns to soil, rather quickly.

No addition to global warming (barring allowing for the contribution of one's expended energy in doing the push ... but one saves in the heat not made due to putting out the energy to haul that propane tank and the other stuff around).

May have to make a couple of extra rounds to deter the plant before it decides to give up the battle.

says ole joyful ... who last fall had about an acre of weeds in his mile or so of garden row ... many of them as high as his head.

P.S. And hasn't yet purchased (or made, probably with landlord's help in his well-equipped shop) such a machine/tool in his own situation.

Is that similar to some preachers' (from time to time) besetting sin ... of saying, "Do as I say (but not quite as I do)"?

o j

Ewe tried the torch and also found that they grow back but it's a pretty safe way to get it done with out poison.

Ditto on - You better not be in So. California!!!

We are not allowed to burn from the end of April through Sept in our county in Georgia. We dig or use Roundup to get rid of weeds or just let them grow. Poison Ivy gets a spray.
Mary

I'm too scared to torch. Dh sprays with roundup. We've also pulled a bunch up by hand. I had a serious allergic reaction last time I did that on a large scale. I'm experimenting with boiling water. That kills the surrounding area for a little while until the microbes come back. Not good in my flower beds. Some of the local garden nurseries carry the higher strength vinegar. Need to remember to pick some of that up.

'they've found Roundup in breastmilk '

oh

my

God

I don't know that anything will kill the roots, but you can try pickling strength (9% or 10%) vinegar, full strength, on a hot sunny windless day.

Wear hand & eye protection.

Within a day or so, the tops will wither, & the roots will shrink, making them 'turn loose' of the soil so that they're easier to pull.

Rent a goat. They'll eat anything, but they do convert vegtable matter into another form of mess underfoot.

I do not remember the exact numbers, its something like 3 grazing goats can clear an acre of kudzu if allowed to graze for three years.

Our community used goats to clean up an overgrown area, and they did a fantastic job.

I hate Roundup and refuse to use it. We have a problem with weeds popping up in the gutter area on our street. Water runs down the gutter, and seeds sprout in the cracks. Besides being unsightly, it is not good for the gutter or asphalt street. I'll try straight vinegar but don't have high hopes it will work.

The best kind of vinegar is the very strong 9 or 10% concentration;
since so many organic gardeners started using it, the big chemical companies lobbied to have it labelled as an acid (duh), & now a lot of stores don't carry it;
you may have to order it online.

It works on almost every kind of weed;
I've even had good luck using it on bermuda grass..

I used 20% vinegar which I ordered through Amazon, in order to try to reign in some encroaching bermuda grass from my neighbor's side of the fence. Yeah, nothing but nothing, kills that stuff.

If this is a parking lot as you mentioned and you want nothing to grow there mix the strongest vinegar and a good bit of salt and pour it on the weeds. It will stop anything from growing there for a long time. Do not however get it on land you will want something to grow on. Boiling salt water is also good. No chemical nastiness involved.

Years ago when daddy wanted to clear the fence rows he would spray the old used tractor and truck oil along them. Works well. Every time he changed the oil he would keep the old oil in a barrel to use this way. Better than spraying roundup.

We kill weeds with vinegar/water/dish soap (the environmentally friendly kind). Works better than round up without the horrible effects.

20%!

sorry, I forgot what I was talking about...

Dumping/spraying used oil is a bit illegal now too.

Well that would be why I said years ago!

However the roundup is a lot scarier to me.

Here's a recipe I saw on facebook:

1 gallon vinegar
2 cups epsom salt
1/4 cut Dawn dish soap, original blue formula

Spray it in the morning, after any dew has dissipated.

Salt is very bad for the soil, but
epsom salt isn't actually 'salt';
it's magnesium sulphate.

OK, I got a gallon of regular vinegar and poured it on two healthy weeds growing in the crack between the asphalt and the gutter. Next day, they looked mostly dead. Yippee! Today I did more of the weeds, using up a whole gallon of vinegar (about $2, by the way). Any survivors will get a salt water treatment.

I have dug the weeds out of the cracks previously but end up taking out chunks of the asphalt too, which isn't good.

Any survivors of the vinegar treatment will get a drink of salt water. Birds and local animals drink in the gutters, the water eventually makes it to the Pacific, so I could not in good conscience use anything worse than the vinegar and salt water.

glad the vinegar worked, but please consider using something other than salt for the toughies.

Salt really doesn't make its way to the ocean.
It stays right there in the area, seeping into the soil & poisoning it.

(You might try the recipe I posted just above your post.)

Here's a photo of what the vinegar did. The weeds were previously healthy, green. You can see a little green near the top of the picture. That weed was different from the rest--not grassy but wider leaf--the vinegar didn't affect it much. I'm doing further weeds in the street with salt water to compare results. Thanks for the thought on that Sylvia. Most of it will go in the crack under the asphalt, the rest will sit in the gutter and be washed into storm drains eventually. It will only be a small amount, not enough to affect any plants anywhere or any birds or animals which might drink from the gutter water.

{{!gwi}}

People's sprinklers spill water into the gutter which makes a nice environment for any weed seeds which might find their way there.

A gallon of vinegar for TWO WEEDS??

Apparently you don't approve, Old Fixer. Why?

It wasn't "two weeds" as you felt the need to put in bold type. It worked, and I don't have to be on my knees in the street with traffic whipping by trying to dig those toughies out.

â¢Posted by socks12345 (My Page) on Wed, May 28, 14 at 13:06
OK, I got a gallon of regular vinegar and poured it on two healthy weeds growing in the crack between the asphalt and the gutter.

OF, I think there's a misunderstanding. I read the post to mean that she bought a gallon of vinegar, then tried it out on two weeds to see if it would work. I doubt she used the gallon on two small weeds, unless they were huge. (It's good to saturate them though.)