Weeds be gone

Sometimes you just can’t fight the weeds. It’s often such a battle you just want to say, “Ah, the heck with it.”

But, weeds are such an ugly sight, especially when they dry out and create a fire hazard.

Keeping that defensive space around your home is often a major endeavor even though there are aids for waging an outright war on the enemy that wants to overtake you.

I managed to get all that ugly stuff whacked down; the stuff that was once lush green and almost attractive in the months of April and May. But then the rain stopped and what were we left with? You got it, that ugly tall stuff.

My guy that sometimes helps me with my yard brought his weed whacker with him to get the perimeter of the place under control and chopped it to the fence line inside and out.

The driveway was beginning to look like part of the lawn, sprouts popping up here and there in the limestone road base material brought in years ago. I guess that stuff carries with it seeds of a foreign variety to a lot of properties.

I had not seen these weeds until the road base came. Well, the first few years I managed to keep it under control with weed killer. This year, however, the rains lasted much longer than in previous years and didn’t allow for removal of the pesky vegetation.

A couple weeks ago my guy did some more whacking in the driveway and this time I got out there with the weed killing solution and sprayed and sprayed over and over again until all was covered. I had turned the auto sprinklers off so none of what I sprayed would get any water for at least a day or two.

However, in all the effort of whacking and spraying, I had forgotten about one little 12 x 12 foot space behind my large double doors to the storage area hidden from view. It’s a place where the stuff that goes to the dump is stashed along with the horse trailer, ladders and odds and ends of things that can be an eyesore from the road.

So I went to park the horse trailer back in that little space and low and behold it was green. The green wasn’t so bad, but this green stuff had round thorns and spikes. They’re called goat-head thorns and let me tell you they are vicious when stepped on by dogs, humans, or rolled over by wheelbarrow and bicycle tires.

They are so sharp when they dry up, the dogs have a miserable time getting around the place without picking one up in their paws.

These little monsters had to go and I mean permanently. I knew I couldn’t whack them as they would dry and thorns would fall off and stay in the ground for years. So, I pulled the garden hose to the spot, attached a small sprinkler and soaked the whole area one evening. I remember that’s how my parents got rid of star thistle in our back yard when I was a kid, soaking it over night. I remember pulling weeds for days after several soakings.

I gave my little area another soaking the following morning and my grandson and I went to war armed with gloves and a large garbage can. We pulled and pulled for about an hour-and-a-half in the early morning before the sun got high and the heat came on. Bending over, kneeling, or any other position necessary to get close to the dirt isn’t an easy chore for anybody. We toughed it out through our misery until we had all those stinky little beasts out of the ground; goat-heads still attached to the vines.

That’s the only way to ensure the plants are gone, at least for this year. If I had stayed on top of this problem when the weeds were little sprouts, they wouldn’t have developed those ugly thorns. From a distance, you can’t see the thorns, just the pretty little yellow flower that makes them look like a harmless ground cover. Let me tell you they are deceitful little critters.

My poor dogs have picked thorns up in their paws each year, even though I killed them all off a couple years ago. Some of the thorns managed to stay in the ground and haven’t deteriorated completely.

It’s a process that takes a long time once they get out of hand. The first year they appeared, it caught me by surprise until I realized after they dried out, the damage they do. Soaking the ground then pulling any pesky weed is one sure fired way to be done with them. Otherwise you really have to stay on top of the matter with the weed killer solution and I mean you really have to spray early in the season.

My next yard task is getting the Johnson grass out of the vegetable garden bins. It is not going to be easy, but the roots and all have to be dug up. It’s another early morning, late evening kind of job.