Every article I've read about Flame Weeding says that the "trick" or "technique" is not to burn them to the ground, but rather to pass the flame over the leaves for split second. Just enough to basically heat up the water and pop the cells.
OK, that make sense as far as killing the weed (sometimes only temporarily) but none of the articles say anything about *why* you don't want to burn them to a crisp. Other than wasting a little propane, and assuming there is nothing else nearby that the extended heat might bother, why not make them disappear completely the first time through? I doubt they'll come back any sooner and things look better immediately.
(Guess who just scorch-earthed the area around his picnic table?)
Don't know what kind of weeds you have, but leaving just a tiny part of the root of a Plantain or Dandelion a;llows it to grow back quitr vigorously, and twirch grass is almost impossible to kill permanently
- even with chemicals. Knotweed is another real bugger, along with Black Medic and "creaping charlie"
Neither of which are an issue in a space like this:
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I never said anyth "Why not make them disappear completely the first time through? I doubt they'll come back any sooner and things look better immediately."
"Any sooner" refers to the fact that a complete burn and a leaf singe may both result in the weeds returning but that I doubt that a complete burn will make them come back "any sooner".
Some places can't be mowed, such as the area in the picture above and around my picnic table.
Complete disappearance of weeds as soon as the job is done or days waiting for the wilted weeds to die off. Which looks more like "crap" to you?
I have two 80ft tall Canary Island date palms that drop a ton of dates and, now that I have eradicated the gophers (basically) and since none of our dogs are interested in eating the dates any longer, I get hundreds of palm seedlings popping up.
I have given serious consideration to buying a weeding torch and giving it a try. I have a lot of mulch in the area, and I am somewhat concerned about collateral fire. Might be best to wait until the hot weather is over and be sure someone is standing by with a hose.
My style of a weeding torch is the Harbor Freight version of the tool used in the following video. I also use a small torch head on a 16.4 oz tank when I need some finesse.
At about 5 minutes into this video you will see that he uses the torch in an area with wood chip mulch. That is basically what I have around my picnic table although mine has broken down more than his. The "wood" portion is now finer and it's more of a mulch consistency. The flame is never applied to any given spot long enough to start a fire and actually blows away anything that doesn't have roots.
I believe you are located in a climate that gets much more rain than where I am. We are very dry most of the year and we get some very wicked wildfires, so much so that we installed rooftop sprinklers, on top of the structures, which are equipped to deliver retardant in addition to water and, I acquired a fire hose water pump so we can use the water in the pool if needed to fight fire.
Al that said, I like the idea of the torch for the palm seedlings, I will pick one up the next time I am over that way.
This is strictly a guess. Maybe the idea is to keep some shade on the ground. That might keep new growth from starting. It works in regular corn/soybean/wheat fields.
There's lots of shade where I burnt most of the weeks with the torch. The reason that there is wood mulch around the picnic table is that the area barely gets any sun. Large maples trees and the house block almost all sun.
i don't actually consider any of those weeds in the grassy places that we mow.
in the mulched places, any significant population of weeds starting is an indication that the mulch needs to be redone (cleaned out or replaced).
for woody mulches like the OP has described the method i use is to scrape off the top layer of less decayed wood chips and then remove all the rest down to the weed barrier fabric. those make excellent garden food.
a quicker way, if you don't mind things stacking up is to put down a few layers of cardboard and then put the wood chips over them (but it has to be deep enough to actually cover). eventually the cardboard decays but by them most weeds are smothered.
i just redid an area about 4 sq meters and it took less time than it would to weed or flame a few times. won't have to touch it for a few more years now. while i'm at it i usually put old news papers and other papers under there so i don't have to bother feeding them through the shredder.
after another few rounds of this i'll scrape it out and use it as garden food.
for the stone mulched areas that get a lot of plant debris dropped on them the best answer when they get a lot of weeds popping up is to take it all up and screen out the crud and replace it.
i've always thought that a good invention for a lawn service would be a vaccuum, screener, replacer unit all in one so you could just go along and get it done, just empty the hopper of crud when it gets full...
I just finished setting up a worm composting box. I wanted to get rid of a pile of paperwork and didn't want to have to shred it all, so anything that had text on it with identifying info I layered in one cardboard box and sprayed each layer with water. A second cardboard box I just tossed in papers that didn't have identifying info on it and lined the bottom of that box with it. I also wrapped both boxes with some packing tape to give it some extra support allowing it to not fall apart as quickly.
I had a spot in a flower bed I hadn't planted anything in this summer, so I set up this composting box there. First I layered a bunch of kindling type sticks in an area just a little bigger than the box, and then put the second box on top of it. Then I filled that box with more kindling and small branches to the top of it so it would help support the weight of the first box.
I stacked the first box lined with wet papers that had the identifying info on to on top of the box filled with kindling and branches. Then I added a nice layer of kindling on top of the papers, went around the yard and dug up some worms, different sizes, and added some soil and worms on top of the sticks. I kept adding worms and soil 'til it was about half full and then started adding a combo of soil and compost/broken sticks til it was full.
The plan is to keep adding worms to it and as they compost the debris and make worm castings it'll begin to rot the paper at the bottom, absorb the castings liquid and eventually drip down into the box under it rotting out the bottom of the top box and eventually the entire set-up will fall apart in that flower bed.
When that happens, I just collect the plastic packing tape that I used to wrap around the boxes for support, and spread out the compost in the same flower bed.
It's an experiment, so, if it works, I can do the same thing with other beds, too.
most papers with writing on them i shred and feed through the worm bins. layering it on top it gradually gets wetted and then eaten by the various critters and fungi in there.
my worm bins are buckets. no holes in the bottom so all nutrients are retained. i restart them each spring from a few buckets held back. the rest are all taken out into the gardens and used for the heaviest feeding plants. it's a nice cycle of nutrients as all household food and paper scraps go through there and it ends up improving the garden soil.
some of the worm species i use are natives so they will survive. some of the worm species are not native and i never find them the following spring - but they are such good composting worms i won't get rid of them.
When I set up my very first worm bins, I used red worms, and they did a great job. So well, I couldn't keep up with their ability to compost scraps!
I put a jug under the AC window unit and collected some water there and used it to moisten that new worm composting box.
I figure it'll all decompose eventually even if I don't find more worms to add to it. The ones I gathered are natives, so, it'll be fun to see how they survive. They definitely have plenty of food to munch on.
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