Remove weeds without poison

Cover weed-free gardens with mulch. Dear EarthTalk: I pruned back an overgrown bush in my back yard last fall and now the soil around it is covered in dandelions and other weeds. Is there any way to get rid of these weeds without resorting to RoundUp and other chemical herbicides? – Max S., Seattle, WA

Weeds are nothing if not opportunistic. While you may not have bargained for getting one form of eyesore (weeds) by clearing another (an overgrown bush), dandelions and other fast-growing, quickly spreading plants know no bounds when some new territory opens up.

They will colonize and spread out given the slightest opening—after all, that’s what defines them as weeds.

Of course, conventional herbicides such as Monsanto’s RoundUp will take down the weeds in a jiffy, but the negative effects on people, animals and the environment may be both profound and longlasting. Independent studies of RoundUp have implicated its primary ingredient, glyphosphate, as well as some of its “inert” ingredients, in liver damage, reproductive disorders and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, as well as in cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, nerve and respiratory damage.

California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation reports that, year after year, RoundUp is the number one cause of pesticide/herbicideinduced illness and injury around that state. RoundUp is also blamed for poisoning groundwater across the U.S. and beyond, as well as for contributing to a 70 percent decrease in amphibian biodiversity and a 90 percent decrease in tadpole numbers in regions where it is used heavily.

Given that, since you’ll have to manually remove dead weeds from your yard after applying RoundUp or any other “post-emergent” herbicide, why not just pull them up by hand in the first place?

No doubt, the most ecofriendly way to get rid of weeds is to yank them out without the aid of poisons. Unfortunately, many weeds have long deep roots which need to be pulled completely if you don’t want them to grow back; if need be, use a metal weed puller with a hooked end or a mechanical grabber — available at any local garden supply or hardware store — if you don’t want to have to pull those very same weeds next year.

Garden expert Dean Novosat of the “Garden Doctor” Web site suggests giving the weed beds a good watering the night before you pull weeds.

“The soil will be softened and will yield the entire weed plant, root and all,” Novosat said. Another way to kill weeds, he says, is by pouring boiling hot water over them.

Once the area is cleared and replanted, cover it with three to six inches of mulch.

Mulch forms a barrier between the soil and the sun, depriving any new germinating weeds of the sunlight they need to photosynthesize. Mulch is composed of large chunky material such as wood chips and bark nuggets, and works well for weed control also because it’s low in nutrients and thus won’t fertilize plant starts below.

California Department of Pesticide Regulation, www. cdpr.ca.gov; The Garden Doctor, www.the-garden-doctor. com.