Hello all, I am a first-time homeowner and have a question about weeds. I am also a total novice to gardening and lawn-care. My house has a cement patio area which surrounds the back side of the house, as well as a small brick areain the patio. My problem is that there are weeds growing up through cracks in the cement and bricks. I went to my local Home Depot's garden section and and they had several kinds of weed killers for this type of thing, but I read the labels and they all sounded very toxic. They did say it was safe after the formula had dried, thouigh. I have dogs so this obviously concerns me. Anyone have any ideas on this? I don't have any idea what kind of weeds they are. They are green, tall, and kind of thin,with sort of frilly leaves, but no flowers. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Well, I got the perfect Father's day gift that would solve your problem! My kind wife gave me an "inferno" propane torch. The torch has a long handle so you can hold the flame close to the ground. I used it for the first time the other day as an organic way to control weeds under my electric fence that surrounds my organic vegetable garden. It worked like a charm!! My wife special ordered it from Home Depot.
If you don't mind bending down, a regular, inexpensive propane torch will do the trick. Any decent hardware store carries Bernz-O-Matic or whatever it's called.
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Boiling water or salt ( rock salt ), but that's just stop gap. The darn things will sprout again unless you eradicate the seeds and dig out the root. Our backyard used to be filled with weeds ( parthenium ) when we first moved in. I remember that my dad used to dig underground and pull out huge nodules of weed root..Major pain..
We use Roundup. The best mix we discovered was 6 oz to a gallon of water sprayed when the air is still. Our sprayer sprays a nice mist set to wet all weeds in one or two passes. It's weeks before we have to do it again. The neighbor does the same thing but they spread pre-emergent weed killer between their stepping stones. Less weeds come up that way she said.
Remember that if you're using a torch (a general use one, or one marketed specifically for week killing - doesn't matter), your goal is to do enough cellular damage to kill the weed. You shouldn't be burning the weeds to a crisp, or turning them into ash.
If you apply too much heat near the edges of concrete, you may cause the edge to pop. And the piece that pops can take out an eye, or cause a burn to skin. (Even if you're not intending to torch to that extent, wear eye protection, and cover any skin you don't want to risk scarring.) Torching too hot near wood can have some predictable consequences, too.
You also don't want to torch weeds when there are any burning restrictions, either. One hot ember can do a lot of damage. For example, I'm hearing on the news that a wildfire was started by a spark from a gas-powered string trimmer that was, ironically, being used to cut down vegetation to lower fire risks.
But under the right conditions, properly torching weeds can be quite effective, avoids any toxic chemicals, and is less labor intensive than manually uprooting weeds.
If you're in a situation where torching isn't appropriate, Round-Up is the best choice. (If you're mixing your own, remember that a stronger mix may be *less* effective than the proper mix because of the way Round-Up works as the plant metabolizes it.) Keep the dogs away from it for a day... maybe two days if they tend to try to eat every weed they see. Your biggest danger is that they'll get some fresh Round-Up on their paws, and then lick their paws.
Also, whether you torch or use Round-Up, it's important that the foliage isn't trimmed first. Both methods depend on the foliage being there to work correctly.
RoundUp comes in so many different concentrations that saying "6oz to a gallon of water" is meaningless unless you specify what concentration of RoundUp you are using.
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