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Comment by hirundo | Hacker News Reader

We're having a wet year and the weed growth is impressive. I've considered spraying Roundup to help control them but I'm concerned about the affect on my pets. Then I talked to my neighbor who regularly uses Roundup. He said that he sprayed a few weeks ago, and his weeds "just kinda look a little tired" instead of gone. If that's all the result I'd get why take the risk.

But I've spent around 10 hours walking behind a weed whacker in the last month. That's not my favorite chore and I'm willing to take some risks to trim it down a bit.

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I recommend reassessing what you consider a weed as well. I only pull up stuff with thorns that don't produce edible fruit and anything that might compete with that I've intentionally planted. That means the rest of my yard has dandelions, violets, clover, creeping Charlie, other random wildflowers throughout the grass. Mowing occasionally deals with the baby trees.

Anything growing up through the gravel is a weed. Anything growing more than a few inches tall under a tree near the house, with the potential to be a fire ladder, is a weed.

I think that most of the "weeds" are beautiful, I have pictures of many of their flowers on my walls. But I can't afford that beauty near the house in wildfire country. And I'd like to keep my gravelled areas clear, including the driveway and around the structures, and asphalt or concrete aren't options.

Try some vinegar and dish soap solution

Glyphosate can take up to 3 weeks to take full effect. There are a handful of resistant weeds. Palmer amaranth (pigweed) is one. Otherwise it is very effective.

If you don't want to use glyphosate that's totally fine, but just know that residential use is essentially a non-factor in these studies.

What did you do after weed whacker usage? If you didn't remove all cuttings, there's your main problem. (also: 10 hours? how large is that piece of land?)

I removed the cuttings in past years, but it doesn't seem to have an effect. I think every inch of soil is throroughly saturated with a large variety of seeds. After whacking it down it's just a smooth carpet of green. So I gave up on the removal as not worth the effort.

If you leave the cuttings they'll decompose and fertilize the soil, giving advantage to fast growing weeds. Possibly also add nitrogen deposition from surrounding industry/agriculture to that, and you have an ideal cycle for lots of biomass. Mowing like twice a year and removing cuttings on the other hand can and usually does break that cycle, can take some years, resulting in less fierce growth, and more slow-growing species.

Is this a garden of a yard you are maintaining? Cultivating a garden before you see weeds cuts down on the weed seed bank. One of those things that takes rigorous practice for a year or more before it is obviously having a long term positive impact.

It's the opposite of a garden, it's a rural lot next to several million acres of wilderness forest. Everything growing here is a volunteer, there is no lawn, I've planted nothing.

And there's plenty of wind constantly bringing more volunteers. This time of year I can almost see them growing.

Should that change my weeding strategy?

I'm a one trick pony, if it isn't a garden I don't know. Perhaps see if you can find out what national parks do for their parking lots?

I’ve had great luck with a mixture of high-concentrate vinegar, a little dish soap, and some salt. It absolutely puts Roundup to shame. This mix is non-selective though so be careful around the plants/grass you want to keep.

Using this mix with a battery-powered backpack sprayer is AWESOME.

Edit: Make sure you rinse the sprayer real well afterwards though, vinegar and salt aren’t great for the seals/pump.

Didn’t Roundup reformulate their product?

I’m under the impression that the roundup from 15 years ago is completely different than what’s in stores today.

It just depends on what you buy. Read the label, as it's what the law requires anyway.

Roundups active ingredient is glyphosate and they have added or removed other supplementary ingredients over the years for different reasons. Some are emulsifiers. Others are additional herbicides which may cause quicker "browning" to please the customer

Don't put glyphosate on your lawn unless you don't want to have a lawn anymore.

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