Summer weed control is no fun

Weeds? (Photo credit: Cyberslayer)

Strolling the garden in the wee morning hours is a ritual for my spouse and me, one that lets us see how each plant is faring as the summer progresses. We check stems and leaves for pests, tuck in errant vines, and admire blossoms.  But when we get to the old perennial bed on the side of the driveway, excited chatter turns from new sprouts and swelling flower buds to dismemberment and destruction.

 The bed, which should be a showcase of the yard, is overrun with bindweed and thistle.  Passersby approach the riot of flowers with eagerness, only to recoil in horror at the sight of perennials being choked by weeds.  Days spent trying to get them under control only serve to make them determined to overrun the garden.

 A tug of war has ensued; during the day the weeds pop up under cover of foliage or coil around taller perennials.  Each morning, I halt in my tracks to pull them out.  Balancing a full cup of coffee while bending over to yank out weeds has become a special skill, one that my spouse admires as nary a drop of the tan liquid is lost.

 While I’m impressed with the growth of most plants at this time, the weeds are coming up faster than I can keep up.  Pulling them is a season long job.  In pursuit of weed control many gardeners abandon some rudimentary connections to the world around them, such as notifying your boss that you’ll be late – again – to the office.

 Some of the tougher weed characters in the garden may change from year to year.  This year there is Western Salsify (Tragopogon dubius), a grassy-looking biennial that is sprouting in many gardens.  Western Salsify’s grass-like leaves arise from a central stalk which, when damaged, oozes a milky sap.  Because it has a long taproot, plucking from the soil when it is very young will give the best control.

 Redroot pigweed (Amaranthus retroflexus) grows to monstrous size, often two to three feet tall with flowers that bristle with spines.  The seeds of this annual weed are tiny and rapidly spread.  Redroot pig weed can be recognized by its characteristic reddish stalk and taproot.  Pulling it when it is young will give good control.

 Perhaps the best-known and most hated weed in our gardens is field bindweed (Convovulus arvensis).  Despite being a member of the morning glory family, there is nothing ‘glorious’ about it.  It snakes through the garden.  It entwines itself through branches, along trellises, and into every nook and cranny of the area.  Pulling this plant results in a nightmare out of Greek myth – four hydra-like plants sprouting from the single plant pulled.  Stamina is required in pulling to control this plant because it must be done repeatedly and frequently, until the energy in the root system is exhausted and the plant can no longer regenerate. 

 Gardeners should beware of the sinister puncturevine (Tribulus terrestris), also called goat’s head, due to the shape of the burs.  This plant starts off cute, with many small leaflets forming a mat across the ground.  When it becomes mature, the plant’s small burs develop a chemical on them that stays in the skin after the bur is pulled off, leaving a

painful sting that lasts for quite a while.  Any plant that is known to flatten bike tires and seriously injury livestock should be removed.

 If pulling weeds to the point of obsession is not for you, mulching garden beds is a great method of weed control.  In order to control weeds mulch should be applied to a depth of four inches across the surface of the garden.  Weed control fabric, when laid underneath the mulch may help, but research is suggesting that this fabric may limit water and air from getting to roots.

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Weeds are distracting me

Author’s note:  here’s a classic article from 2006, published in the Boulder Daily Camera and Longmont Times-Call.

   Perhaps I have stepped over the line when it comes to gardening.  It happened recently when I slipped out the door in my old, pink bathrobe to get the newspaper.  I spotted a weed growing in the garden and became immediately sidetracked, swooping to pluck it from the ground.  Over an hour later I returned to my senses, knees and robe hem dirty, weed parts dangling from my fingers, wondering what on earth possessed me to spend an hour gardening in the front yard in my pajamas.

    Weeds have a lot to do with this erratic behavior.  They’re sprouting at an alarming rate.  While I am impressed with the growth of most plants at this time, the weeds are truly coming up faster than I can keep up.  Pulling weeds is a season long job and in pursuit of weed control many gardeners abandon some rudimentary connections to the world around them.  One colleague of mine told the tale of her small children coming to her while she was weed pulling to ask what was for dinner.  Distracted by weeds, she responded “I don’t know – what are you fixing?” 

   Some of the tougher weed characters in the garden may change from year to year.  This year there is Western Salsify (Tragopogon dubius), a grassy-looking biennial that is sprouting in many gardens.  Western Salsify’s grass-like leaves arise from a central stalk which, when damaged, oozes a milky sap.  Because it has a long taproot, plucking from the soil when it is very young will give the best control.

    Redroot pigweed (Amaranthus retroflexus) can grow to monstrous size – often two to three feet tall with flowers that bristle with spines.  The seeds of this annual weed are tiny and rapidly spread.  Redroot pig weed can be recognized by it’s characteristic reddish stalk and taproot.  Pulling it when it is young will give good control.

    Perhaps the best-known and most hated weed in our gardens is field bindweed (Convovulus arvensis).  Despite being a member of the morning glory family, there is nothing ‘glorious’ about it.  It snakes through the garden.  It entwines itself through branches, along trellises, and into every nook and cranny of the area.  Pulling this plant results in a nightmare out of Greek myth – four hydra-like plants sprouting from the single plant pulled.  Stamina is required in pulling to control this plant because it must be done repeatedly and frequently, until the energy in the root system is exhausted and the plant can no longer regenerate.  Battles with bindweed are epic, and are, in my mind anyway, the true summer Olympics.

    Gardeners should beware of the sinister puncturevine (Tribulus terrestris), also called ‘goat’s head’ due to the shape of the burs.  This plant starts off cute, with many small leaflets forming a mat across the ground.  It looks nice, but heaven help you when it becomes mature, because this plant’s small burs hurt when they grab you.  The burs have a chemical on them that stays in the skin after the bur has been pulled off, leaving a really painful sting that lasts for quite a while.  Any plant that is known to flatten bike tires and seriously injury livestock should be removed.

    If pulling weeds to the point of obsession is not for you, mulching garden beds is a great method of weed control.  In order to control weeds mulch should be applied to a depth of four inches across the surface of the garden.  Weed control fabric, when laid underneath the mulch may help, but research is suggesting that this fabric may limit water and air from getting to roots.

Related articles

• Start pulling now to keep weeds under control (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

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A new way to look at weeds

If you’re shopping for a book on weeds for your library, look for one to help you easily identify the bane of our yards and gardens.   Truly useful tomes are those that offer photos or line drawings to help you in identification, plus information on how it grows and advice on how to control it.  But if the weed guide comes complete with cooking tips, the book you have enters the realm of must-have resources for gardeners.

I’ve never had a book on weeds include a chapter with recipes, but Nancy Gift included them in her new book, Good Weed, Bad Weed (St. Lynn’s press,Pittsburgh, $17.95) for a reason.  “There’s a sweet revenge in eating a weed that’s growing in the lawn where you don’t want it to be,” said the author and weed scientist, who brings a refreshing perspective to the plants we consider uninvited guests.

“People care about weeds because they hate them, but my background is that I love them,” said the assistant professor of Environmental Studies at Chatham University in Pittsburgh.  “I have my Grandmother’s love of plants, and I look at how people use them.”

 After a career spent working with farmers as an Agriculture Extension Agent with Cornell University, Gift moved to the suburbs and the saw that the style of weed control in home yards was based on the farmers’ method of spraying herbicides.  “But the rates of spray homeowners use is much higher than growers use, because farmers are minimizing how much they’re exposed to and trying to keep costs down.  Homeowners are more interested in getting every last dandelion out of their lawn.”

This intolerance for weeds is, in part, due to advertising that characterizes all uninvited plants as weeds to be eradicated, she said, which leads to intolerance for wayward seedlings.  “When people start to be aware of wanting an organic lawn, often they feel guilty, worried that the neighbors won’t like them because they have weeds in their lawn.  But there are weeds you don’t have to do anything about; they’re just plants.”   

Gift is quick to acknowledge that there are weeds that fall in the “bad weed” category, such as those which cause allergies, are painful, or poisonous.  These she agrees need control and offers tips for getting to the root of those problem plants.  “We need to understand where the weed comes from, what point in its growing cycle it’s weak, and plan our attack.  If we can figure out when to take action, we can avoid using a lot of chemicals.”

Writing a book that categorizes weeds as good, bad, or not-so-bad was challenging, said Gift, because weeds don’t behave the same in all locations.  What is unremarkable in one area of the country might be an invasive nightmare in another, so her advice on learning to live with them – like trellising bindweed to enjoy its lovely flowers – might strike some as borderline wacky. 

 But her easy to use guide lists the most common weeds and includes photos to help you identify seedlings and mature plants, along with tips for using or appreciating their beauty.  For those who want to get rid of the weeds, Gift covers a variety of ways to control them other than reaching for a bottle of chemicals.

Within each description, Gift includes her experience with the weed, and what lead her to including it in the book.  Those that didn’t make it into this guide can be found on her website.

Finishing the book with a flourish, she included a few recipes, in case you want to whip up a few dishes to serve those judgmental neighbors at the summer potluck.

Related Articles

• Start pulling now to keep weeds under control (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Smoking Weeds: Stopping Fast-Spreading, Invasive Reeds without Chemicals Takes Perseverance (scientificamerican.com)

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Victory over flea beetles and weeds

Today’s blog post can be heard on the public radio show Crop to Cuisine, hosted by Dov Hirsch. 

Across the country, vegetables plants are all the rage.   There’s an air of optimism with putting these in the ground, in what the media is touting as a return to victory gardens.    But the name “victory garden” is a puzzler here in Colorado; after all, we’ve long known that anytime we even get a plant to grow it’s a triumph worth celebrating.

 Every season, we battle drought, concrete soils and hurricane force winds; then summer arrives and things warm up; the heat bringing worse foes:  weeds and bugs.  With this, new gardeners can get discouraged.

 There’s no resting on the laurels of a newly planted bed; once the irrigation starts weeds pop up, unfurling leaves and colonizing areas faster than you can pick them.  That blush of green you see isn’t a young lettuce bed; its purslane or Kochia, getting settled into your ground.

 Plucking and pulling every day seems like an endless task, so give yourself a break and put down mulch in that vegetable patch.  A quick, easy way is to clean your bed, put out your soaker hoses, then lay two sheets of newspaper down over the soil (black and white pages only, not color).  Top this with three to four inches of straw or grass clippings.

 This simple mulch is very effective in keeping weeds down, since seeds don’t sprout and grow up from under it.  You’ll still get some weeds, though, since any seeds blowing into the area can germinate and root down through the mulch.  

 In addition to keeping weeds to a bearable level, mulching over soaker hoses is water thrifty – it helps retain moisture in the ground for plants to take up, and reduces how often you need to water.

 Once the mulch is down, check under it before you water, to get an idea of how long it takes to dry a bit under the covering.  Then pull up a lawn chair, pour a lemonade, relax, and wonder what the heck those small dots are savaging your prize seedlings.

 Flea beetles.  Just the thought sends shudders through a gardener’s world, because they herald the first true battles of the season, where the winner takes all.  Just remember – this is YOUR victory garden, not theirs.

Most of the flea beetles plaguing our plants spend the first part of their lives below ground, though some can develop on the leaves.  Beginning with the eggs laid in cracks of the soil, after hatch the wormlike larvae grow, dining on tender roots.  Typically this isn’t the problem stage – it’s the adults you need to worry about.

These small, shiny beasts with jumbo sized hind legs are voracious feeders that leap out of the way of danger.  Even your shadow sends them scattering for cover. Gnawing small, circular holes into leaves – called shotholes – their attacks can result in seedlings being stunted or killed.  Many of our vegetables and ornamentals are at risk – potatoes, tomatoes, cabbage, lettuce – everything is fair game to them. 

This assault on your garden must be met swiftly, unless you enjoy seeing the look of horror guests get as you parade them through your shredded stalks.  Options for flea beetle control vary, but before you break out the serious chemicals, try a few earth friendly ideas like floating row covers popularly called ‘Remay’. 

 This light cloth tented over your plants keep bugs at bay, but you’ll have to lift it to allow pollinators to get at the blooms.

 Radishes planted as trap crops around your garden work well, particularly for attracting one of the types we have here, the Western Cabbage Flea Beetle.  Plant them close together in a border or the insects will keep flying further until they find your prized crop. 

 Yellow or white sticky traps may work, although they must be placed so closely together it will be hard to move around your garden.  Anyone who’s worked with these gooey glue boards knows that they capture anything that comes into contact with them:  dirt, bugs, leaves, and small toddlers.  They get disgusting quickly.

Diatomaceous earth is great as an irritant to repel the beetles.  Made from crushed fossilized sea creatures, diatomaceous earth is a powder that, sprinkled on the plant, causes discomfort to the beetle’s exoskeleton.  Like a scratchy sweater, it irritates the flea beetles and they move on, into the neighbor’s yard.  You have to keep applying the dust, though, after every rain.

One of my favorites is vacuuming off the beetles – I love how the sight of this stops traffic on my street.  Like a deranged June Cleaver who can’t stand the sight of a dirty garden, I’ll toss on a set of pearls and march forth, vacuum cleaner in tow. 

Years of experience have taught me that the household vacuum is best for this task; shopvacs won’t do.  These bugs are little – you only need a gentle pull to get them off the plant.  A machine capable of pulling up nails is too big; one slip with that type of suction and in a pppttthhhp!  your seedling is a distant memory.  You’re left with shredded parts clinging to the hose end and a bunch of flea beetles, bowing down before you, in awe of your sheer destructive power.

 No, a dirt devil is the perfect size and if you move with finesse, you’ll get a bagful of beetles in no time.  Point the nozzle at an angle to the leaf so you don’t draw up the plant instead of the bugs.  Be prepared to repeat this several times per week – there’s plenty more beetles out there willing to reinvade you garden after you and your vacuum leave.

 One note:  if you do vaccum your bugs, you have to empty the bag.  This is not for the squeamish – take the vacuum away from your garden, open the bag cover, and grasp the neck of the bag near the entrance from the machine.  Pinch this shut as you remove the bag, tie off the end and dispose of it.

 If you’re not in the mood for light housework in the garden, try Neem.  Made from extract from the neem tree, this helps gardeners keep flea beetles under control.  It’s available as a spray at your local garden centers.

 With each challenge you’ll find more to celebrate once your harvest get rolling.  If   you’ve got a brand new garden, one where food has never been grown before, log onto Grow Local’s 2,009 gardens in 2009 website to register your plot and take the grow local pledge.  This project is devoted to bringing people closer to the earth and the food it provides.

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