Back to Weeding!

Our brick driveway and walkway was built in 2000 - just after we made some major renovations to our home. For about 5 years, it was lovely...














Then a few weeds started to sprout in the cracks between the bricks. I removed them by hand, trying to avoid the use of harsh chemicals. But every year the weed invasion grew. Last year I bought a hooked knife (called a "crack weeder"). But even that wasn't enough to solve the problem.

So this year I am using a variety of "weapons" in my combat against the weeds...

• boiling water
• crack weeder
• vinegar... and
• several chemicals sprays (one of which claims to be a strong soap)

One of my neighbors told me that her mother used to use javex bleach... (But wouldn't that change the color of the brick?)

If all this fails, Terry came across this "recipe" in a magazine: Boil a gallon of vinegar with a pound of salt, until the salt dissolves. Then add a dash of dish-washing detergent and cool. (Sounds like brine for dill pickles, plus soap... and minus the dill and spices!)

I'd use this hot as well as cold! (But I'm saving that for my last line of defense!)

This other aspect of gardening - hard work digging weeds - has always been part of the gardening tradition. A hundred years ago, British poet Rudyard Kipling wrote:

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing 'Oh how wonderful' and sitting in the shade'
While better men than we go out, and start their working lives
By grubbing weeds from garden paths with broken dinner knives.














Well, that's just what I'm doing for half and hour or so every day, weather permitting...!

As I told a neighbor who came over to commiserate: I guess weeds are here to show us who's "boss" (and it isn't us!)