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| Common Dandelion ( Taraxacum officinale) |
I have an update on my dandelion problem. We partially gave in to chemical & treated the front lawn with a 'weed & feed' this week, but I am experimenting with a couple of 'organic' weed treatments in the backyard where the kids spend most of their outside play time.
The scientist in me has created an experiment. I read somewhere that boiling water kills plants & that makes sense to me... so I'm trying a couple of things. I've created 5 plots in my backyard with 4 treatments and 1 control.
1) pour very hot, but not yet boiling water onto the plants
- My hypothesis: the top will be killed right away, but the root will come back.
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| hot water plot |
2)boiling water straight out of the pot onto the plants.
-My hypothesis: again, that this will just kill the top, but not enough of the root.
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| boiling water plot |
3)only pull the weeds with my weed puller
-My hypothesis: I won't get enough root to kill most of the plants
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| pull only plot |
4)use my weed puller & pull out as much of the dandelion as I can and then will pour some boiling water down the hole.
-My hypothesis:that this will kill the root & hopefully not as much of the surrounding grass.
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| pull and boiling water |
5) control - no treatment (though I will remove flowers so that I'm not increasing my problem!
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| control (but removing flowers) |
I'll keep you update with results...
Happy Dandelion Control & Gardening!!! :}
Other posts in this series can be found here:
I love that you've turned this into a case study! Now me, I would have thrown up my hands and grabbed the nearest weed and feed. I've heard about boiling h2o but never tried it. Can't wait to read more about the results!
ReplyDeleteSara, Thanks for the encouragement. I have seriously questioned my own sanity more than once in this process... especially today as I was in and out of the house with kettles of boiling water. (My neighbor thinks I'm positively certifiable!!!) Hoping to have some conclusions soon! (Weed & feed is still in the running for this summer.)
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