Click below to listen to my 2 min Garden Bite radio show: Weeds in the vegetable garden
The heat wave those of us in the Upper Midwest have experienced has been mostly okay for our tomatoes, peppers and herbs (so long as we watered them).
But that means it’s been pretty good for the weeds too!
I just weeded yesterday! HA!
Lightly cultivating is a way to get those annual weeds but the perennial weeds are more industrious, their roots tend to break off underground and just make more! Hand pulling is the only safe way to control these irritants near your veggies.
However, if you’re looking to do some damage to those perennial weeds in your flower beds, you may desire a total vegetation killer. It sounds threatening and it is. That means you need to be very careful how you apply this chemical.
There are several on the market and I would venture to say that all of them will kill what you want dead. The art of application is not killing the good stuff. There are a couple of methods that work. Do this on a windless day.
Pour your vegetation killer in a plastic tub like a cool whip container, with plastic gloves on, use a 1 inch sponge brush and brush the leaves of the weeds on both sides.
You can use a spray bottle if you cover the weed with a milk jug. Just cut the top and bottom of a gallon milk jug and place over the offending weed, then spray in the container.
Be sure to follow all safety directions listed on the container and that includes mask and safety glasses especially using a spray. The chemical moves through the leaves into the stems and down to the roots where it does it’s magic leaving little opportunity for a sneaky little root to reproduce.