How to Stop Dandelions from Growing in Your Yard ©
Posted: Friday, September 05, 2008
by Arlene Wright-Correll
http://www.learn-america.com
Call the Dandelion police! Is there a 911 number for it? My word! How we have become so brainwashed about having pristine manicured lawns that give us either the grand manor look or the country club look.
Personally I happen to like dandelions. They are harbingers of spring! You can go out and harvest the leaves and cook up a mess of dandelion greens because it is considered the best way to build up the blood. Did you know that dandelion greens are more nutritious than even spinach because they are loaded with high amounts of vitamins A and C, and contain impressive levels of iron, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and copper? All that good stuff is the main reason organic gardeners love to throw dandelions in their compost mix.
Come on now how many of you remember the first bouquet you ever picked to give to your mom? Chances are they were a bouquet of Dandelions!
Yet I know they are pesky perennial plants and have roots that would take Arnold Schwarzenegger to pull out.
If at this point I have not convinced you to leave those dandelions be then I suggest some of the following simple solutions for those lawn people who want to solve the problem organically.
The first and simplest one is "mow them down" and mow them down often because keeping them cut keeps those bright yellow heads from peeking up through your green grass and offending the eye or from growing tall enough to germinate and get those lovely little puff balls from blowing all over your lawn and giving you more of them.
Next tip is to dig them out. You cannot pull them out by the roots as they simply break off at ground level, so you have to get down on your hands and knees and dig them out making sure you have their long tap root.
For those of you who are not water conscious or who do not live in a water ban area and have excess gas or electric to burn then boil kettles of water and pour boiling water on them. That will do the trick as you will be able to see in about three days.
I personally do a lot of weed control with the cheapest gallon jugs of vinegar I can buy at my local food market. That does the trick for me. Use just plain distilled vinegar, not the apple cider kind and simply pour it on the dandelion or any other weed you are trying to control.
If you are really gung ho about these pesky plants then cut little pieces of cardboard and put it on top of the dandelion and weigh it down with a rock because lack of sun will kill them. Of course your neighbors will think you are crazy and your lawn will like weird.
I recently read that the Iowa State University had developed a weed killer that was made of corn meal gluten and it is supposed to kill the weed at the roots but must be applied four to six weeks before the weeds germinate and frankly that is too much work for me so you can figure out by now that I really am on the side of the lowly Dandelion and those of you who have Dandelion nightmares might use some of my suggestions above.
"Tread the Earth Lightly" and in the meantime May your day be filled with
Peace, Light and Love,
Author's note: This article was originally written for GreenThumbArticles.com
This Article has been viewed 967 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
No comments yet.We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.