What weed do you hate the most?

I have raised beds and am currently fighting what seems to be a losing battle against quackgrass (couch grass). It seems to love being covered with cardboard, likes compacted soil and loves raised beds, and even survived three months under black plastic fairly cheerfully... Tilling it lets it propogate more widely, and if you pull it it takes a pound of soil and any intentional seedlings with it. It makes pokeweed, dandelions, dock and spotted spurge look like friendly neighbors. In short, I hate it with a deep and abiding loathing.

So what weed drives you crazy in the vegetable garden?

no major problems. Wire grass (bermuda) is probably the most troublesome, followed by nutsedge and crabgrass. Fortunately I don't have bindweed (perennial morning glory), which tried my patience in Virginia.

Johnson grass. Our subdivision was built on virgin Texas scrub country, and nine years later I'm still fighting my share of it. Of course in open fields it makes great hay for livestock, so I can't hate it intensely, but it is so persistent. The stolons go so deep as well as far and wide, and if while grubbing it out I miss even the tiniest joint of root, I'll soon know about when new growth springs up. When it comes up in an established bed it will crowd out everything meant to be there, but digging it out also destroys the intended inhabitants. Getting it out of sidewalk joints and and at building foundations is next to impossible. Yuska

Purslane is my favorite. My main garden isn't a raised bed and is fairly weed free. Yet in late summer after it is harder to weed 100%, this pesky stuff really comes on. I think it only takes a few plants that make seeds to keep it going.

Nut grass....closely followed by Johnson grass. At least, for me, Johnson grass is easy to pull when small. I've heard nutgrass will emerge thru anything!

The !@#$! deer! Oh, you mean a plant. English ivy...someone planted it on our property years ago and it has completely run amok, strangling trees, lawn, and gardens. Evil stuff.

pam

Quack Grass :(

Chickweed is a nuisance too.

Don

nut grass...I hate it :)

Crab grass, my nemesis.

bindweed !!!!!!!

Quack grass but I dont have a lot of it because I have always tackled it with great zeal! I rip it out in the spring when I can really dig and any blade that springs up over the summer is immediately removed .
Zeppy there is only one way to deal with quack grass if you dont want to use chemicals and that it is dig it out by hand - you need to go down 6-8 inchs to get the roots. Certainly if it is in you r veggie garden and you rototill you will just spread it around!
When I bought my house 15 years ago an area that had been veggie garden was covered in quack grass other weeds and dog poo. I had it rototilled - being somewhat ignorant at the time. The guy who did it said if he had seen it beforehand he would have refused - the roots just wrapped around his rototiller and he though it might break. He suggested - and I did - spraying it with roundup. I had tried to hand pull it when alive but it was a losing battle. After killing it I went over every square foot of the area pulling out roots. The next year there was hardly any in sight! When I had the landscaping done the top soil seemed to be full of weeds(wouldnt it be nice if cows ate flowers said my Mum) and I weeded every inch of the yard all summer.Took me a full week to work my way around the beds! Result - hardly any weeds after that!

Wire grass (bermuda, crabgrass! That's what I have been pulling daily. Hate the bermuda the most! They're everywhere in the garden. It's easy to pull when they re young. For crabgrass. Hard to pull when they are older. I have few near by the house. I am going to dig it out and rid it.

JOHNSON grass! Crabgrass usually comes up in rare shoots you can rip out. But Johnson grass has stalks EVERYWHERE and unless the ground is moist you aren't getting these suckers out by the root. Can't use preventative killers yet as I've worked a YEAR with grass seed to get my lawn in.

Do mesquite trees count as weeds? LOL.

This message was edited Apr 30, 2006 2:58 PM

For about 15 years my biggest problem was bindweed. But I finally have it cut down to just a few plants that sprout and pop up every year. Phwew! That was a battle that I wouldn't want to repeat. Now I go on a weekly hunt for any plants that may have sprouted and hit them with roundup right away. I've read that seeds can lay dormant for over 100 years and then sprout, so once you have bindweed, I think you always have the chance of some seeds sprouting.

Now my biggest problems seems to be purslane and quack grass. The quack grass is all over since we built the house and disturbed the ground. And the purslane is growing in the sidewalk, driveway and everywhere. I expect to come home from work some night and find it happily growing in the living room.

I used roundup in the backyard for the bindweed, but after two of my dogs developed cancer, we don't use it anymore. (Of course, I can't prove it was the weed killer that caused the cancers. One has been cured and the other is in remission now.) So, in one bed, the bindweed is a real problem, since the more you pull it the more it comes back!

I wonder if vinegar would work? It's worth a try. Maybe someone else will have an idea of an organic way to get rid of bindweed.

Aimee--Mesquite definitely counts as a weed in Texas. So does that awful Chinese Tallow Tree down our way...hard to yank that tree.

While not a huge problem, but a very irritating problem in those areas I can't keep heavily mulched (garlic: it has to dry in June, bush bean areas, and wherever I have to direct seed squash, melon, cukes) is this neighbors idea of a flower garden with all this purslane...I am constantly pulling it up in my garden this year...its even travelled a good 200' to my back yard.......
Debbie

This message was edited Apr 30, 2006 8:18 PM

LOL, thanks for confirming that Debbie!

Joan, vinegar will work on most weeds but you have to buy the horticultural vinegar from the store, it is 20% vinegar concentrate and the ones we eat are only like 2% so they aren't interchangable.

I've had some success with 9% pickling vinegar that I get at the supermarket. I use it only on those spots where I've pulled and dug all I can get to but there are still pieces of Jg stolons I can't reach (sidewalk joints, fence lines, edge of foundations). Concentrate it in
small areas and on roots only...not strong enough to be fully effective from foliage on down. Yuska

Home Depot and Lowe's sell the stronger stuff Yuska, huge bottle. It works pretty well.

This is something to try in sidewalk joints and crack - clean out as much as you can then sprinkle a good layer of Borax in the crack and pour boiling water over.
Works for me!

Ah, good ideas!

Joan, I use regular 5% acid vinegar on many weeds. The key is to apply it when the sun is shining brightly on the weed. I think the combination of acid and sun does the trick.

My most troublesome weed is Pulsane. I was told it was called that but can not find it in PlantFiles to confirm.
It's a fleshy ground cover thing with red stems. Edible I'm told.
Any part of it will set roots.
Andy P

http://davesgarden.com/pf/adv_search.php?searcher%5Bcommon%5D=purslane&searcher%5Bfamily%5D=&searcher%5Bgenus%5D=&searcher%5Bspecies%5D=&searcher%5Bcultivar%5D=&searcher%5Bhybridizer%5D=&search_prefs%5Bsort_by%5D=rating&images_prefs=both&Search=Search

try this

Andy its probably purslane...look at my pic above...I just can't spell and type to fast...had to edit my own spelling, yet again! LOL
Debbie

Sorry, that's not it.
Mine has no flower. The leaves are 'Tear Drop' shaped.
A reddish stem, fleshy like Impatience but rubbery, lays flat on the ground.
Andy P

I believe we are talking about the same purslane, also called pigweed. I've never seen mine flower either, but I think I read somewhere that it only flowers briefly in the early morning? I'll see if I can find that info again.

Here's a couple good sites on purslane
http://ipm.ppws.vt.edu/scott/weed_id/porol.htm
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/WEEDS/purslane.html

Creeping charlie. It is EVERYWHERE and, being in the mint family, you only have to leave a little bit behind to start a new round. I don't mind it in the blackberry patch. Its lowgrowing enough that it tends to choke out the larger weeds and keeps the ground cooler. In the flower beds, strawberry bed and veggie garden it is a contant battle and I'm afraid its winning. Its so wide spread I don't want to use chemicals though so I keep pulling...and pulling...and pulling.

I have this clover type weed pretty prominent in my yard. I am always picking it out by hand and another patch grows in. It is very brittle and tiny leaves. When you rip it you have to be careful to pull all it's strings of it back in (think of doing a pony tail on someone) and pull it out by it's 1 root. Often it will break into pieces leaving a milky white sticky residue on me. Is this the weed you were talking about?

LoanJ, That's it. Thanks.
The stuff grows like mad in the veggie garden. Most likely because I don't 'pick up' after weeding, then it sets root again.

I have plenty of Creeping Charley too. That's another story.
Vinegar doesn't work well on that, LOL. I tried a few days ago....
I did take a pic of blooming CC a few days ago, playing with the camera in Macro.
Andy P

you have to be careful with vinegar. Too much and nothing will grow in the area. Bind weed has roots that can be 14 foot deep and the seeds are viable for 50 years. They are experimenting with mites that eat bindweed and nothing else.

I bought a torch, basically a flame on the end of a metal cane attached to a small fuel tank. It does work but you have to be very, very careful since you can kill the neighboring plants that you're trying to grow. I killed a beautiful mature blueberry bush by burning the bark all the way around. The mulch caught on fire and got away from me for a few minutes and the damage was done. Also killed a few smaller plants outright. But on the plus side, it has killed quite a few true unwanted weeds with no bending, digging, spraying or poison.

I have the same weeder. I may be using it wrong: it seems to initially kill, and then the weeds come up through between the bricks with vigor. I'll try again today, if I get a chance.

For big established weeds with a long taproot, I step on a spade near the weed, gently loosen the soil by levering it up a bit, then bend down and pull the whole weed out. For annual or small weeds I use a scuffle hoe. And for quack grass I have to hand pull, and pull, and pull. And for all the dandelion seeds ready to germinate in the next rain, I will be spreading corn gluten everywhere.

I've had some luck with a clove oil spray called "burn out," as well.

If you burn the tops, I think they just come back stronger...think about fires on the prairie...sure doesn't kill those weeds!
Debbie

Agreed, it requires repeat application for many weeds and it can be very tedious. Still, I find it useful. Maybe it just the sense of immediate satisfaction I enjoy.

yes, watching them "sizzle" would have its own rewards!
:) Debbie

Bindweed...and that stuff my husband calles "wild carrot". It takes over EVERYTHING!

Redhead,

We have that wild carrot too but I find it's easy enough to pluck out. What I have trouble getting rid of by weeding is this clover type weed pretty prominent in my yard. I am always picking it out by hand and another patch grows in. It is very brittle and tiny leaves. When you rip it you have to be careful to pull all it's strings of it back in (think of doing a pony tail on someone) and pull it out by it's 1 root. Often it will break into pieces leaving a milky white sticky residue on me. What IS this?????????

Edited to say: Oh yes, the stems on this low growing weed are red.

This message was edited May 6, 2006 7:52 AM

got me Alamo, but I sure enjoy your posts! You have such a way with words....
Debbie

This message was edited May 5, 2006 6:15 PM