Boil Your Weeds

When I really think about it, I can honestly say that sometimes weeding is fun. Like the day after a good rain storm in early spring when the weeds' roots are still pretty shallow and the rain has left the ground workable - that's a fun time to weed. I have to say though, there is NEVER a good time to weed in gravel and we have quite a bit of it on either side of our driveway. For some reason, there is NOTHING that can't grow in that gravel from grass to dandelions (or "sunflowers" as O likes to call them). Sure, we could go out there with a big ole tub of some toxic weed killer and I'm sure it would end the problem for awhile but do I really need to list out the reasons why that's not a good idea for a family with a young child? I don't think it's a good idea for anyone but I won't make this my anti-chemical soapbox post.

Last year we tried something that still makes me laugh when I think about it. It worked for awhile and sure was fun but I'm not really sure it was economical.

Yes, that's the dear hubs with a Coleman propane tank attached to some sort of weird long valve thing the neighbor let us borrow and he burned those weeds straight to oblivion. It was quite a bit of fun and I'm pretty sure our weed growth is a little lighter this year but we used more than a couple cans of that propane.

Forever on the lookout for better ways to kill weeds in the gravel, I did some research. The aforementioned neighbor (who also has a beautiful organic lawn and vegetable garden) has mentioned on a number of occasions that spraying vinegar on weeds on a warm, sunny day will also fry them. Unfortunately though, we live in Seattle and the sun hasn't really fully come out yet but the weeds are definitely in full bloom.

So, while I wait to use the vinegar treatment, I decided to try boiling the weeds. It seems to me this can't be very good for them right? Now, please forgive me, I swear I took some before pictures but now I can't find them anywhere which is frustrating me to no end but I think you'll get the idea with what I could find.

I started with one area over on the other side of our driveway that always has lots of grass and dandelions growing in it and I dumped a few pots of boiling water fresh from the stove ("Everyone move, I'm coming through with a pot of water, someone open the front door!!") then watched over the next few days as the area turned brown. The picture I can't find is my day 1 photo so here's day 2:

And day 3:

I think you can see as well as I can that the greenery here wasn't happy about my treatment. I think maybe we'll bust out the burner again and fry the remains to ensure nothing survives but from what I can tell, I'm pretty sure most of these are dead to the roots.

When I get tired of fretting about the weeds I can always look to the other side of the front yard and admire the results of our last minute bulb planting spree last fall.

Thank you for reading,
Julie
Other posts you might be interested in:
The Shed
The Kitchen Remodel