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The only form of glyphosate I currently use is the gel... I reckon that's probably OK as you're applying it directly to the target plant, with no risk of over-spray. And even then I'm pretty sparing about it - I only use it on deep-rooted weeds in positions that make them difficult to dig out. Although I must admit that I'm starting to consider resorting to herbicides on my allotment paths... I never seem to have enough time to weed them, because I'm always struggling to keep up with the weeds in the beds.

I have just started using neat spirit vinegar with a bit of salt, I have a few docks and nettles in a polytunnel and they are behind a board that I can't dig out, so used the vinegar and it seems to have done the trick, but I have bought more vinegar just to deal with a few deep rooted perennials on my gravel path, usually would flame weed any small growth off. The picture is my bed of garlic, planted last September/Early October, no dig bed covered first with paper and then deep grass mowings and hay, garlic bulbs dibbed through, there are no weeds growing through apart from a few little bits. I have covered the paths with fabric and then put wood chip on top to keep the weeds down. When I had an allotment, put down thick cardboard and covered it with straw for pathways, kept the weeds right down so more time was spent on gardening than weeding which I HATE!! Use this method throughout the whole garden and I spend hardly any time on weeds in spite of growing in a meadow.

Vinegar won't kill the roots, just the foliage... I'd wager they'll be back. And I'm not entirely convinced that it's really that much better from an environmental point of view - after all, it's produced by acetobacter as a means of making its environment inhospitable to almost everything else.

Still, it's always interesting to hear how these things actually work out in practice... Let us know how you get on.

As for the paths... Yeah, that's more or less the approach I've used (with bark rather than straw), but the weeds and grass are now growing in the mulch on top of the fabric.

What happened was that the roots became loose possibly weakened by the vinegar and I have been able to pull them out which I couldn't do before, and I agree I don't think using vinegar all over the place is a good idea, but again it is being spot used rather than just waving it all over the place, I don't want to kill all my beetles, but it did make a couple of slugs foam a bit

Yep , I've done the same at the allotment a weed membrane covered with bark chippings. Yes some annual weeds have rooted it the Bark chippings but they pull out easily. I think in the autumn I am going to cover the paths in cardboard and put some more bark chippings on top to make a cardboard mulch sandwhich which hopefully should stay weed free for at least a season. Just spent a couple of hours weeding and preparing beds , hopefully tomorrow I can spend a couple of hours popping some seedlings and seeds in to make my plot look more loved and productive. Properly more weeding too.

The good news is all the hard work over the last couple of years has paid off and most of the weeds now are shallow rooted easy to pull up annuals. I have only seen one thistle and a little bit of bind weed which is getting weaker every time it pops its annoying little head above the soil. The no dig method appears to work for me as it reduces the growth of weeds as new seeds are not brought to the surface and we keep the soil structure.
I have made a midsummer resolution . Go down and weed little and often. I am going to book myself at least two hours a day at the allot.
Happy weeding everybody.

Skippy wrote:Quote:
Urine samples were collected from volunteers in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Macedonia, Malta, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, The Netherlands, and the UK. A total of 80/182 samples tested were found to contain glyphosate. Volunteers were all city-dwellers and included vegetarian and non-vegetarian diets. No two samples were tested from the same household. The samples were analysed by Dr Hoppe at Medical Laboratory Bremen in Germany.

Pete

I would be the first to admit that I know very little about the internal workings of the human body, but as the glyphosphate was detected in URINE samples, doesn't that imply that it was ingested in a previous meal ?
If that is the case, some people could be eating glyphosphate on a daily basis.

I think riff raff has nailed it when he said that these weedkillers shouldn't be sprayed onto edible parts of a crop but this is all but impossible in the real world so yes I would say some if not most people probably eat weedkillers on a daily basis. I've said in other posts that I have a gardening round and some of my customers have lawns that go right up to the road and sometimes I can see where the council have come along to spray the weeds and a good 8" of lawn is brown and dieing too. Annoying in so many ways not least because the cuttings are thus rendered useless for composting.

On a brighter note we could just try eating some of the weeds as many are edible (although there must be a limit as to how much chickweed my garden thinks I can eat). In my front garden I have my "herb" area and what with the horehound,soapwort, good king henry , comfrey and sorrel of which some is setting seed I'm sure some think it's just a weed garden.


Pete

With regard to weeding, with the rabbits my weeding time is also food collection for the rabbits and I'm picking a big plastic trug full every day

Double the efficiency

They love docks

Oh I feel another big weeding session coming on this afternoon.
It is overcast but the soil is moist after the few showers over the last few days. Hopefully they will come up easily. I need clear the ground to get my winter brassicas and leeks out tomorow with a little help from my friend.

Weeds are definitely fighting back. Ground was a bit harder than I thought . It's going to be a tough day weeding with my helper. I might go and put some water on the beds I want to weed and sow into tomorrow. It might make life a bit easier and quicker.

Pumkinpie wrote:It is overcast but the soil is moist after the few showers over the last few days.

Same here - perfect midge weather. Ten minutes outdoors, tops, before I have to run and hide, and then the little blighters follow me indoors

I've radically changed my opinion about weeds in the last couple of years - everything from awareness of what they can tell you about the type of soil you have to using them as rabbit fodder and dynamic accumulators in chop-and-drop mulching.
Many of the tap rooters pull phosphate, iron and zinc from deep in the soil making it accessible to your surface plants as the chopped mulch decays. Leguminous weeds take nitrogen from the air and fix it into the soil for other plants to utilise.
Aside from the fact you can eat much of it yourself (and why are so many things flavoured like aniseed?) the edibles can be dropped into a chicken run, fed to sheep, rabbits and pigs.
I guess it isn't everyone's idea of gardening but at least I don't get quite so frustrated these days ..... it's more a case of, ''yeah! sow thistles! rabbit food''

tizzy wrote:it's more a case of, ''yeah! sow thistles! rabbit food''

Do you mean "sow thistles" as in sow thistle seeds in your garden or "sow thistles" as in female pig thistles ?
Ah, the amusing intricate vagaries of the English language.

tizzy wrote:I've radically changed my opinion about weeds in the last couple of years - everything from awareness of what they can tell you about the type of soil you have to using them as rabbit fodder and dynamic accumulators in chop-and-drop mulching.
Many of the tap rooters pull phosphate, iron and zinc from deep in the soil making it accessible to your surface plants as the chopped mulch decays. Leguminous weeds take nitrogen from the air and fix it into the soil for other plants to utilise.
Aside from the fact you can eat much of it yourself (and why are so many things flavoured like aniseed?) the edibles can be dropped into a chicken run, fed to sheep, rabbits and pigs.
I guess it isn't everyone's idea of gardening but at least I don't get quite so frustrated these days ..... it's more a case of, ''yeah! sow thistles! rabbit food''

I'm starting to run out of 'rabbit food' in the veg plot and will have to go farther afield

Do you have any info on what weeds signify what about soil conditions?