weed id, how many do you have in your yard/gardens?

[flowerbug]

i was outside working in the north garden yesterday and while burying stuff and reshaping and weeding i noticed up in the limestone pathway a new weed that did not belong there. arg!

we normally let some nigella wander around in the gravel so some weeds can hide in and around those plants and the rock edges until we notice them. in this case it was Creeping Charlie or Ground Ivy – Glechoma hederacea which i found via a google search and then using this page:

Weeds – Manitoba Master Gardener Association

www.mgmanitoba.com

we do have some of this weed in the little bit of grass and that patch has been expanding but i didn't bother it since it gets regularly mowed. i had to track down more of this weed in the pathways, along the edge of the rocks, in a few garden beds and such and now know that i have to control it as it will get spread around further. as a first round of knocking back the plant in the grass i could scrape the grass using the stirrup hoe to remove leaves and that will let the grass get more light and fight back. i'm sure i'll be hand pulling this for years now. oh, well what's another weed?

so in the list on that page i had to read along and find out how many others i recognize here. quite a few... we have a good diverse mix of weeds...

p.s. the Creeping Charlie looks enough like speedwell that is what i thought it was at first, but the flowers are different and the leaves are larger. the good news is that it is not as hard to remove.

p.p.s going down through the list it wasn't until i got to Yellow Goat’s Beard – Tragopogon dubius that i saw a strange weed that we don't have.

 

[digitS']

Oh, the pain ...

At one time, I made something of a study of identifying weeds. One time?! No. I found myself again and again having to go back and identify (put a name to) the same weed. Every 10 or 12 months I found myself looking up the same weeds as they reappeared each year.

Why I would forget their identities between times was because I really didn't like to think of them. Learning probably was from some notion regarding "know thy enemy." Also, I felt responsible for them. This is probably because I've spent so much time gardening on other people's property.

What has been dismaying to learn is that nearly all weeds are invasives. Yeah, we knew that. No, I mean that they follow gardeners and farmers around and are often not just continent-wide but worldwide! Seldom are they natives. It ain't just little old me who is responsible for them being ĕv′rē-wâr′!

Steve

 

[ducks4you]

I have most of these, although I don't consider dandelions OR purslane weeds, and purslane is easy to pull out by the roots after a rain.
The advice I keep hearing on the ongoing weed war is this:
1) remove seeds as often as possible if IMpossible to remove the whole plant
2) don't till--I don't follow that advice bc I welcome some of these weeds when small. Bugs voraciously attack weeds that Do sprout and leave the crops alone most of the time
3) compost/fertilize HEAVILY, especially in the Fall so that the worms can decompose everything for the new growing year
You want HEALTHY vegetables and they Will compete with the weeds, if you help them.
4) don't leave dead vegetation from your previous crops in the ground. They can harbor diseases, even SEEDS can harvor diseases. Remove them. I burn mine
5) HEAVILY mulch!!! I have mowed 1st year burdock, which is only the leaves and put down 4-5 inches of it around plants, like my peppers and I had literally NO weeds in the vegetable bed.
6) Use cardboard, when you can, bc it doesn't poison your crops and will keep most weeds from growing
7) Use herbicides, in a cup, with a kid's watercolor brush to poison weeds growing right next to your plants.

Glyphosate Q-tip or paintbrush method - The Lawn Forum

8) plant flowers with your vegetables and vegetables with your flowers. Flowers attract pollinators and when you fill up the ground you help them all
9) along with #8, DON't plant your plants so it looks like your bed is in the desert!
THIS LOOKS pretty~

Green vegetables growing in the fields Stock Photo - Alamy

Download this stock image: Green vegetables growing in the fields - DE4MRA from Alamy's library of millions of high resolution stock photos, illustrations and vectors.

www.alamy.com

but every bit of OPEN dirt has been treated with herbicide, we ALL don't want to do THAT, so don't let your garden bed look like this. Better to have GRASS growing next to your tomatoes!
I will give you ALL my primer on removing burdock SOMETIME this winter...when there is more time.
I am winning this war, btw.

 

[catjac1975]

Oh, the pain ...

At one time, I made something of a study of identifying weeds. One time?! No. I found myself again and again having to go back and identify (put a name to) the same weed. Every 10 or 12 months I found myself looking up the same weeds as they reappeared each year.

Why I would forget their identities between times was because I really didn't like to think of them. Learning probably was from some notion regarding "know thy enemy." Also, I felt responsible for them. This is probably because I've spent so much time gardening on other people's property.

What has been dismaying to learn is that nearly all weeds are invasives. Yeah, we knew that. No, I mean that they follow gardeners and farmers around and are often not just continent-wide but worldwide! Seldom are they natives. It ain't just little old me who is responsible for them being ĕv′rē-wâr′!

Steve

I do not need to know the name of the infiltrators that I continually pull.

 

[aftermidnight]

i went to the pharmacy and asked for a big hypodermic needle the biggest they had,then double gloved i let the stems have a nice dose of roundup. works like a charm even on blackberries.

Annette

 

[flowerbug]

@catjac1975 i do want to know the names as well as much as i can learn about them because if they are perennial then i have to get down to the root system level of eradication. and yeah, @digitS' i do also forget names of things i've learned. i'm horrible at memorization tasks (which is why i gave up on German after three weeks, i just had too many other things to do that term and could not possibly keep up).

the thing that list could have used is the "Edible" tag on those that could be eaten. a few are so at least they can be useful in a pinch.

the list also missed a few of the weeds we have here that i like to keep after like narrow leaved plantains, some of the wild daisy family, nutsedge, horsetail. crabgrass, etc.

 

[Carol Dee]

I love the site link you posted. WOW my yard has MOST of the those weeds. IF we ever manage to get rid of all of them there would be no green in the yard! LOL Creeping Charlie is the #1 most common. Pulls easily, but speeds fast from anything left behind. I would hazard a guess that 1/4 t0 1/3 my yard is Creeping Charlie!

 

[catjac1975]

@catjac1975 i do want to know the names as well as much as i can learn about them because if they are perennial then i have to get down to the root system level of eradication. and yeah, @digitS' i do also forget names of things i've learned. i'm horrible at memorization tasks (which is why i gave up on German after three weeks, i just had too many other things to do that term and could not possibly keep up).

the thing that list could have used is the "Edible" tag on those that could be eaten. a few are so at least they can be useful in a pinch.

the list also missed a few of the weeds we have here that i like to keep after like narrow leaved plantains, some of the wild daisy family, nutsedge, horsetail. crabgrass, etc.

I was not dismissing your desire to learn all about them. I am just dyslexic in name retention.

 

[flowerbug]

I love the site link you posted. WOW my yard has MOST of the those weeds. IF we ever manage to get rid of all of them there would be no green in the yard! LOL Creeping Charlie is the #1 most common. Pulls easily, but speeds fast from anything left behind. I would hazard a guess that 1/4 t0 1/3 my yard is Creeping Charlie!

it has been in the grass for a few years now and i didn't worry about it there as i'm ok with weeds in the grass, but once it starts invading pathways and nearby gardens then that is the sign it is too invasive. having to deal with speedwell is bad enough, and actually i think the speedwell is worse because it gives off some kind of smell/chemical that gets my nose running. the Creeping Charlie at least doesn't get me that ways and it does pull out easier. i think i have a good chance of controlling and eliminating it because it is mostly isolated to one place at the present time so when i get chances i can go around and hunt it down and remove it. i'd just made the mistake of leaving it alone when it first showed up because i'm a sucker for purple/pink flowering plants and the bees have to have some food sources after all...

really, here, it has always been an issue of figuring out which invasive weed of the season to try to focus on reducing the population because they can really take over quickly. purselane and the thyme leaved spurge are two that i can find in almost all the gardens. i'm pretty sure the seeds stick to my shoes and get spread around and i'm not going to wash my shoes every time i move from one garden to another. i just need to eradicate them from the gardens to begin with. same with the woody sorrel/oxalis. i've vastly knocked that back the past few years by being more consistent about pulling any plants i see and letting them dry out and die on the surface. if they have seed pods i pull those off and toss them in the grass so that the birds can eat them.

poison ivy, horsetail, canadian thistle and the sow thistles are the worst as they require either a lot of digging or very careful handling to remove.

purselane is just nuts with how many seeds it can drop. i missed too many of those plants this season in a garden or two so next season i'll have to keep after those a bit more and scrape more often. when they are just tiny plants a scrape will take care of them. when the plants get bigger than any bits that get scraped up may need to be scraped a few times as they will try to reroot and regrow, but if disturbed a few more times so they can dry out completely then they are just good worm food.

i had to spend a huge amount of time this past summer getting that pallet project done and all those gardens messed up from that so this coming season i won't have that hanging over me. no more huge projects! i hope... i'm sure i can come up with some anyways. i know i have one or two that will need work next year but nothing that will take as huge chunks of time in comparison... *whew*

 

[ducks4you]

i went to the pharmacy and asked for a big hypodermic needle the biggest they had,then double gloved i let the stems have a nice dose of roundup. works like a charm even on blackberries.

Annette

You can buy same and probably Cheaper at a farm supply store. I used one of those giant syringes when my horse Ro Go Bar (1982-2007, RIP) had a puncture wound which needed flushing with an iodine solution 2x/day. They only ask you to sign their book for medical supplies.