Weeding without chemicals.

Dig them out! Pull them up!😬

People have different”formulas” but everything is a chemical basically - salt, vinegar whatever.

Boiling water will kill shallow rooted seedlings but not deeper roots.

Vinegar will only kill seedlings, the easiest way I have found is to mulch the area at least 2inches deep at the start if the year and then remove the weeds that do come through by hand.

If you have got weeds like bindweed with rhizomes the only way is to clear the bed and use glyphosate because however careful you are you won’t remove every root fragment

butane gas fuelled weed burner.

The only way I know that works which is chemical free is to pull them all out by hand, hoe, then apply a barrier of some kind, either a thick enough mulch to stop more coming through, or a weed control fabric. Cardboard underneath either acts as a second barrier.

M0nica

butane gas fuelled weed burner.

Tried it but removing weeds close to other plants you want to keep still needs doing by hand.

I think the magic formula is called a spade, sarnia 🙃

And why is it that weeds like bindweed or nettles grow almost on top of the plant you want to keep so that you can’t pull them up with out damaging the one you want to save?

Baggs

I think the magic formula is called a spade, sarnia 🙃

I was hoping for something less labour intensive.

Baggs

I think the magic formula is called a spade, sarnia 🙃

No, it's called a trowel by those of us who can no longer use a spade very well, or for longer than five minutes at a time!

I quite like using a hoe when appropriate. It’s satisfying to chop off their heads! They do come back sometimes but just repeating the process eventually weakens them.

My garden is full of creeping ground sorrel, it's pretty with it's tiny yellow flowers and reddish leaves but it's so invasive. It has seed pods that explode tiny seeds everywhere. I have tried everything, dreadful weed killers that don't work, hoeing off at the beginning of the growing season, digging it up, covering with weed membrane after using salt, and burning it off. It still comes up relentlessly every year. If it stayed in the grass I would leave it but it gets absolutely everywhere and whatever I do the 'cure' doesn't last. Weeds are kings of the plant world and grow fiercely wherever you don't want them

Baggs

I think the magic formula is called a spade, sarnia 🙃

Yes, the good old fashioned method! I have a long handled gadget for extracting weeks from the lawn but I can also use t if the soil is compact and dry. It’s got spike on the end and a pedal to lever the long roots out…….it was gifted to me because the previous owner didn’t know how to use it! It’s probably the only thing of a gardening nature that’s any use and was free.

Nandalot

And why is it that weeds like bindweed or nettles grow almost on top of the plant you want to keep so that you can’t pull them up with out damaging the one you want to save?

I think you have to just keep on removing the top growth of the invader and in the autumn or early spring dig up the whole lot, your precious plants and the invaders and dig out the offenders' roots before replanting the plant you want to keep.

Nettles a re fairly easy because they tend to be shallow rooted but bindweed is a complete horror. You might well have to resort to disentangling it from the plant during the growing season and painting it with glyphosate.😢

I do a combination of having used weed suppressant cloth on particularly bad sections of garden (it worked). I also find one of those handheld gadgets designated for removing dandelions handy for specific long-rooted individual weeds.

Now I've got my garden together - I tend to the motto of "little and often" to keep a handle on it.

M0nica

butane gas fuelled weed burner.

I had one but I couldn't bear incinerating all the little insects which got in the way of it. 😢

I don't think they work too well, either as they just seem to destroy the top growth and leave the roots to revive.

Nettles a re fairly easy because they tend to be shallow rooted but bindweed is a complete horror. You might well have to resort to disentangling it from the plant during the growing season and painting it with glyphosate.😢

That’s the only cure I’ve found, sometimes you have to compromise on principles

I use wet cardboard all round on new beds. Plant through that as tight to the cardboard as you can, then cover with gravel to hold it down nice and tight. Keep adding divisions of plants particularly geraniums and any nearly evergreen herbaceous perennials to create really dense matrix. If you see anything you don't like including bindweed pull out quickly. Deprivation of light is the trick. Gardeners shadow and all that.

Butane gas just burns off the tops and does not kill deep roots

Deep roots can be killed by concentrating the flame on the root centre on the surface and keeping it there for a minute or more. Done once a week for several weeks it is very effective.

I saw a garden formerly a lawn, where they had put a black plastic barrier matting over the lawn then thousands of large 3 to 6 inch round pebbles on top. At first it was weed free, but seeds & blown dust & leaves gets in between the stones over the years forming compost for seeds to grow in. Eventually after two & half years or so, weeds started to come up between the pebbles, almost impossible to pull out once they have got a hold & you see them, very awkward & painful to walk on too.
Their roots had burrowed down through the matting, & surviving weeds under it poked heads up through the fabric in holes that they had made. It just got worse & worse. Nothing lasts forever, & sometimes it is more trouble than it's worth.

You won't ever completely get rid of weeds, whatever you may classify them as being.

Sometimes it's like fighting a losing battle but keeping them under control is a little more achievable...

Good heavens, David Two minds and but a single thought

Oh, I see you were quoting me...

I find that a Japanese digging knife very good. Also known as a hori hori.