Gaining Ground on Weeds

The battle has already started. Even if you haven’t engaged them, especially if you haven’t, the weeds are advancing. When I bought my house, the former driveway area was full of goatheads, crawling weeds whose prickly seeds can send shooting paint into the most callused heel or paw. Being inept at killing weeds, it took me years to get rid of them. If I’d known then what I know now, I could get rid of them in one season.

There are many ways to kill or prevent weeds—I’ll cover several. The old driveway would have been a good place to use herbicide. Some people think any herbicide must be harmful. But how harmful is it to expose your skin to two or three straight hours of sunlight while you hack or pull weeds? Not only can sun exposure lead to skin cancer, but too much of it will turn you into a human Gucci bag, to quote fitness expert Bill Phillips. Wanting to be safe, though, I e-mailed Texas A&M University about Roundup, an herbicide. I heard back from horticulture professor George McEachern: "Roundup is one of the safest ag chemicals we use." Consider also that not all plant-toxic chemicals are man-made. To quote The Undaunted Garden: "[Tree of heaven and black walnut] ...actually secrete substances from their roots into the soil that stunt the growth of plants other than themselves..." Here are some more means of stunting the growth of weeds:

Preventive measures:
Put down several layers of newspaper and cover with mulch. To put in plants, just poke a hole in it. The newspaper will disintegrate in a few years, adding organic matter to the soil. This is better and cheaper than plastic sheets, which tend to tear, or plastic fabric, which allows weed grass to grow through it.

Apply a pre-emergent fertilizer to prevent weed seeds from sprouting. Don’t use this anywhere near bulbs, though, since it can kill them.

Killing weeds mechanically:
Use a hoe; they come in various shapes and sizes for different gardeners and different purposes. You can also use a long, narrow tool with a double-pointed end to dig up tap rooted weeds such as dandelions. This is a good tool to use when the weed is very close to a plant you don’t want to harm. Of course, there’s always the weed wacker if you just want to keep your weeds short.

Killing weeds chemically:
I bring the dog inside for a few hours, get a bottle of Roundup concentrate, mix it according to directions, and zap all the weeds in a few minutes. I use a piece of cardboard to protect plants I don’t want to harm. Again, just follow the directions carefully. The concentrate is cheaper than the ready-to-use bottles, where you’re paying for about 99% water. I’ve tried using vinegar on weeds, but it never worked for me. One thing I’d never use to kill weeds: salt. It may be natural, but it poisons the soil.