Posted on 06/15/2021 10:27:55 PM PDT by Olog-hai
I’ll bet that in some corner of your toolshed or garage, an old hoe is leaning against a wall. A hoe that hasn’t seen use in a long, long time, having been replaced by, perhaps, a gasoline- or electric-powered tiller, chemical weed killers, or mulches.
Hoeing is not much in vogue these days, perhaps because it seems to require what Charles Dudley Warner, in his 19th century classic “My Summer in the Garden,” said every gardener should have: “an iron back with a hinge in it.”
But hoeing is, believe it or not, an easy, safe way to control weeds. Maybe even easier than many of the “labor-saving” methods that have supplanted it.
The reason for hoes, rototillers, weed killers, and mulches are two-fold: first, to keep weeds in check, and second, to keep the soil surface loose so rain can percolate in rather than skitter away across the surface.
Chemical weed killers, which eventually provide an open field to weeds that are resistant to them, also do nothing to keep the soil surface loose. Straw, leaves, and other organic mulches keep the soil surface loose and smother weeds, but only if maintained in a thick enough layer.
Powered cultivators chop up weeds and loosen the soil, but in so doing burn up organic matter, ruin soil structure, disrupt earthworms and beneficial fungi, and damage roots. …
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
I do this, but use rock salt - I don’t use it around garden areas, just on my rock walkways and gravel driveway where I don’t care if anything ever grows!
I thought I was clear about that in my original comment:
“Obviously such a concoction is not something that you would want to use on your kitchen garden or around your fish pond, but it works great for fencerows, around out-buildings, etc.”
Many people would follow your recipe since it does not include any alternative - which is what I supplied.
Old Hoe or young....either way you don’t pay the Hoe for the work.... you pay the Hoe to go away after the work is done
I too am in the Pacific Northwest like your brother was. I can attest to the blackberry zombies.
I once asked a local master gardener on his live radio show (Ed Hume) how to get rod if the blackberry bushes that keep re-emergence in my backyard. He told me there were two ways.
1. Bulldoze out all if the soil and replace with new soil. 2. Cut off the blackberry stalsk near the ground come fall and paint each one with roundup. It sucks the roundup down into the underground roots as they prep for winter.
Then he said “really, nothing works.”
What do soap chips do for the garden?
And that’s why car batteries have a label on them that says ‘Don’t drink the battery fluid!’
Keeps deer away. I use Irish Spring soap.....Very smelly.
I’ve got one of those. I’m getting it when the time is right. Them weeds are mine!
Give yourself credit for your artistic talent! Ithaca would still be a nobody if it weren’t for you! :)
And I can’t even say “I knew him when....” Did he like his picture?
He said it was a very good likeness! :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-1OnAgKC9U&t=361s
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