Questions? Write Me at

Questions? Write me at fullcirclegardener @ cableone . net.

Dandelions Everywhere and I'm Experimenting...

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.
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.
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
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.
pull and boiling water


5) control - no treatment (though I will remove flowers so that I'm not increasing my problem!
control (but removing flowers)


I'll keep you update with results...


Happy Dandelion Control & Gardening!!!  :}


Other posts in this series can be found here:

Dandelions Everywhere!

Dandelions Everywhere and I'm Experimenting...

Dandelions Everywhere: Experiment's Tentative Results

Dandelions Everywhere: The Experiment One Year Later

2 comments:

  1. 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!

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  2. Sara, 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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