Weeds

[Gaz]

My weeds are doing rather well this year.  I'm sure there must be some rare specimens, so if anyone wants any, please come help yourself.

 

I've deddered them with Weedol, and then deddered them again.  But they just come back.  I've been manually removing them from between patio slabs, and while initially quite satisfying, it soon became quite tedious.  Weedol has quite a strong smell, which affects my breathing 👎

 

An old boy walking past said to just use salt water to kill them.  I'm about a mile from the sea, so this is quite appealing.

 

I've got some bottles of vinegar to mix with salt and washing up liquid, so will give that a go.

 

Just wondering if anyone's got any other tried and tested suggestions for moidering them?

 

Tia

 

Gaz

 

 

Edited 11 July, 2023 by Gaz
reinstalling a runaway 'n'

[Ttaskmaster]

I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

 

Alternatively, I know someone with a working WW2 US Army flamethrower....?

 

[skomaz]

I nuke em with a mini flamethrower (weed burner) from ebay...

 

How does flame weeding work? – Flame Engineering

 

 

[Gaz]

14 minutes ago, skomaz said:

I nuke em with a mini flamethrower (weed burner) from ebay...

 

Hmmm, the weed wands on ebay look interesting.  You got the one with a screw in butane canister, or the larger bottle on a trolley one?

 

Burning 'em sounds like much more fun than digging 'em up.

 

Gaz

[skomaz]

1 hour ago, Gaz said:

 

Hmmm, the weed wands on ebay look interesting.  You got the one with a screw in butane canister, or the larger bottle on a trolley one?

 

Burning 'em sounds like much more fun than digging 'em up.

 

Gaz

 

Screw in butane canister.  I got the wand and six cannisters for about £15 last year and im still on the first one.

 

It is quite satisfying to see them wilt but SWMBO doesn't like the smell and one of the neighbours did pop round to check if something was on fire...

[SteveTheElder]

Burning the weeds does sound particularly satisfying but I've always worried about cracking the patio slabs so never ventured down that route. Use whatever weedkiller I think is best at the time I need some. The last lot I bought seemed to be useless at first, but after about a week the weeds suddenly wilted and that was it, gone. Can't remember what it was though.. 🙄

[Ootohere]

Tesco had a clearance on these today. £2 each so i bought a few.

Not great but i no longer can get industrial strength stuff for much cheapness and there are just so much weeds all around where i park i need something.

 

 

[Liger1956]

My dad used to use a Sodium Chlorate solution on areas that he wanted NO plants to grow and it worked well. Unfortunately it has been banned in weedkillers and it appears to be hard to buy these days.

[Gaz]

4 hours ago, Liger1956 said:

My dad used to use a Sodium Chlorate solution....

 

What a great memory nudge there Liger 👍

 

Guess what I've got, snuck away in a deep, dark corner of my garage:

 

 

I reckon my arsenal has just become significantly more dangerous for el Weedies, mwuh huh huh huh harrrr  😎

 

Gaz

 

[Ootohere]

I gave my dad stuff many years ago that i got from a forester and when he used it on an area he was going to slab it leached onto what was to stay as lawn and killed the grass.

Another mate supplied me with grass seed which would revive the lawn.

Well that did not go well, it was seed for sowing wild meadows. 

[MikeTheThinker]

4 hours ago, Gaz said:

 

What a great memory nudge there Liger 👍

 

Guess what I've got, snuck away in a deep, dark corner of my garage:

 

I reckon my arsenal has just become significantly more dangerous for el Weedies, mwuh huh huh huh harrrr  😎

 

Gaz

 

I'd strongly suggest waterproof gloves and at least a face mask of some sort; also not on a windy day.  NaClO3 (Sodium Chlorate) is not nice at all to humings!

 

Edited 12 July, 2023 by MikeTheThinker
Formula fixed - thanks

[Frenchtone]

Na Cl --- salt, NaClO3 chlorate, a very old chemist!!!!    😄

Edited 12 July, 2023 by Frenchtone

[MikeTheThinker]

4 minutes ago, Frenchtone said:

Na Cl --- salt, NaClO3 chlorate, a very old chemist!!!!    😄

Another very old chemist here (before I discovered computers) and one with a flaky memory 😞  Thanks for the heads-up.  Now fixed.

 

[J.R.]

1 hour ago, MikeTheThinker said:

I'd strongly suggest waterproof gloves and at least a face mask of some sort; also not on a windy day.  NaClO3 (Sodium Chlorate) is not nice at all to humings!

 

 

Only if you mix it with sugar and ignite it.

[MikeTheThinker]

1 hour ago, J.R. said:

 

Only if you mix it with sugar and ignite it.

It's actually pretty toxic on its own; lethal dose is only a few grams 😞

As regards your pyromanacal comment, I recall in days of yoof deciding we could blow down a tree with that mixture.  Tree survived, but the process was - shall we say - exciting ...