What's your weed du jour?

[Amigatec]

Pigweed can produce 100,000 seeds and they can remain viable in the soil for 25 years. I have a nice patch of it myself.

[piegirl]

Rosadawn - could you share your recipe for ground ivy tea? Maybe I have a different kind of gold mine on the back forty! Never thought about making tea. Just filled an entire garbage can with the stuff - that was just for starters. Piegirl

[habitat_gardener]

The weed I like least is Euphorbia characias. It was planted as an ornamental in the "perennial border" (mostly weeds) at the community garden, and I'm always finding tiny ones in my garden plot.

The most persistent one is raspberry volunteers! Earlier in the spring, when the ground is still damp, I pull them up and offer them to people who want raspberry plants.

When I got my community garden plot, the surrounding path and a little bit of the garden was full of bindweed and bermuda grass, so I pulled what I could, put down cardboard or newspaper, then 6-10 inches of mulch on top, on all of the surrounding paths. Within the plot, I used newspaper and an inch of mulch, and pulled every little bit of weed that I saw. I even sacrificed my spring crop of raspberries so that I could get the bermuda grass out of the raspberry patch. Where I've kept up the mulch, both weeds are gone. But the surrounding garden plots are weedy, and where the neighbors don't maintain their part of the path, the weeds are making their way back.

"Weeds" (self seeders) that I like and encourage include stinging nettles, plantain, california poppy, borage, parsley, globe gilia.

[matereater]

Here's a great site for weed i.d. and control. Hope it helps.

http://www.msuturfweeds.net/
We have created biography pages for each weed to help you better understand why weeds invade. The biography pages include information on habitat, alternative common names (AKA), look-a-likes, management practices and chemical controls.

[Zana]

Originally Posted by matereater

Here's a great site for weed i.d. and control. Hope it helps.

http://www.msuturfweeds.net/
We have created biography pages for each weed to help you better understand why weeds invade. The biography pages include information on habitat, alternative common names (AKA), look-a-likes, management practices and chemical controls.

great site matereater! However I've got a few that aren't on there. Based on that, I think it may be ground ivy that is the bane of my existence. I've probably pulled 5 or 6 yard waste bags out of one bed in my front yard in the past year alone. Less of it this year as I mulched the dickens out of that bed after weeding it last year. But I still found a few this spring...grrrrrr.

[RosaDawn]

Sure Piegirl,heres what i do:gather 1 oz or so of ground ivy(leaves and flowers)rinse well,chop up,lay on a coffee filter,bring up edges and tie with a string..Put filter in a mug,pour in about 6 oz of boiling water and cover(i use a saucer)and let it infuse for a few minutes.Sweeten with honey or sugar and enjoy..

[hasshoes]

Poison Ivy. . . lol, but that's another thread. ;0)

[bcday]

Bishop's goutweed. At least it provides lots of material for the compost heap, but if I don't keep at it from first thaw to first freeze, nothing else can grow through the choking blanket of greenery.

[guruofgardens]

bindweed, for sure. The more I pull, the stronger it gets.