Dandelions on the site: how to get rid of

“Yes, what to talk to her about? Dandelions grow in her yard!” – so in the villages in the old days they spoke about negligent housewives. And all because the fight against this weed is a difficult and tedious task, and if there are a lot of these flowers in the yard, it means that the woman is too lazy to weed them.

And modern summer residents are even worse – when you come to the site once a week, it is difficult to control the growth of weeds. So what to do? How to get rid of dandelions?

How to get rid of dandelions in the area forever

There are 3 reliable ways.

Weeding

The safest way to deal with dandelions is by weeding. But also the most problematic. It is impossible to defeat them with an ordinary hoe – it cuts down only the above-ground part of the plants, and the dandelion has a very massive rhizome, on which renewal buds are located. And as soon as you cut down the tops, the roots will immediately give new leaves. Yes, if you constantly cut plants with a hoe, then sooner or later the rhizome will be exhausted and die. But trust me, you will exhaust yourself sooner.

Nevertheless, weeding can and should be done, but it is important to choose the right tools.

Root remover. This tool is rarely found in the arsenal of summer residents, but it is convenient and ideal for dandelions. It is a handle with a T-shaped handle, and at the end there is a metal nozzle in the form of thin sharp teeth twisted in a spiral.

The essence of working with it is as follows: stick the nozzle into the soil so that the dandelion is in the center of the spiral, turn the tool in a circle and take it out along with a clod of earth and a root. Shake out or remove the weed and move on to the next one. On heavy clay soils, it is difficult to work with a root remover, but in general the tool is good and effective.

Shovel. The main task in the fight against dandelions is to remove rhizomes from the soil. This is easy to do with a shovel – stick the blade into the soil, slightly (not completely) twist the clod of earth, take out the rhizome from it, and then lower the clod back.

The method is very reliable, but troublesome and requires physical effort. It can be adopted if dandelions grow in the garden, vegetable garden, flower beds and there are not many of them. You can’t do that on a lawn. And in the cracks between the slabs, you can’t get the weeds with a shovel either.

Knife. Another way is to cut the rhizomes with a knife. The knife should be sharp and with a long thin blade. Stick the blade near the dandelion at an angle, cut the root as deep as you can, and remove it from the soil. Even if the tip of the rhizome remains in the soil, the weed will not grow back, because its buds are in the upper part.

Weeding is a classic method of struggle, but it has a significant disadvantage – dandelions will still appear. Even if you carefully exhaust all the rhizomes, seeds from neighboring plots and nearby meadows will fly to you. So you have to weed constantly.

Mulching

This method will allow you to get rid of dandelions in the garden for the whole season. All you need to do is cover the aisles of the beds with black mulch non-woven material, you can buy it at any garden center. And it’s even better to cover the beds completely, and plant the seedlings in cruciform cuts (or cut longitudinal strips for sowing seeds in rows), then there will be no open land in the garden at all. Weeds, like any plants, need light, and such a canvas does not let it through. As a result, weeds die, even malicious rhizomes. Their seeds, which were in the soil, also cannot germinate. And the seeds that were brought by the wind, although they will be in the light, will not have contact with the soil and will not be able to take root in it.

The method is quite reliable, but many summer residents do not like it – the fabric between the beds looks ugly. But this is easy to fix if you cover it with a layer of natural mulch – hay, straw, chopped bark or rotted sawdust.

And, of course, this method is only suitable for cultivated land – flower beds or a vegetable garden. Closing the lawn with a cloth will not work.

Herbicide treatment

This method is ideal for lawns: it is enough to treat them with herbicide – and dandelions will die.

But here it is important to choose the right herbicide. All of them are divided into 2 groups – continuous and selective action (1). Solid kill all plants in a row. And selective only certain species – monocotyledonous or dicotyledonous. The traditional lawn is cereals, they belong to monocots. Dandelions are dicot plants. Therefore, you need a herbicide for dicots – it will not damage the lawn, but it will destroy dandelions. Among the popular lawn herbicides are Deimos, Hacker, Lintur (2). But you don’t have to remember them – almost all manufacturers write on the packaging: “For the lawn”.

Working with herbicides is simple – diluted in water, poured into a sprayer, treated the lawn (of course, in a respirator and in calm weather, but this is in the instructions) – and you don’t know grief. For some time. But then you have to repeat the treatment again – dandelion seeds will definitely fly to your lawn.

By the way, herbicides can be used not only on the lawn, but also for treating paths – it is not easy to crawl into the gap between the plates and stones with tools, and chemicals cope with this task perfectly.

Non-standard solutions for the fight against dandelions

All of these methods are known. But there are methods of weed control that few people know about. But they work too!

siderates. Many summer residents have heard this word, but not everyone understands what it is and why. Siderata are plants that heal the soil – increase fertility, rid it of diseases and suppress the growth of weeds (3). There are many green manures, but the most affordable and effective are mustard and rapeseed. In the process of growth, they release special substances into the soil – glycosides, which inhibit the growth of other plants, including dandelions. You can sow green manure on the beds in early spring – in mid-April. For about a month they will grow, ridding the site of harmful plants (which also germinate very early), after which they are dug up, embedding the green mass in the soil. Rotting, it will become an excellent fertilizer for vegetables.

You can use green manure in the garden and garden. In flower beds, too, if annual plants are grown there. In perennial plantings, it is problematic to sow them, and even more difficult to dig up. And on the lawn, of course, they will not be sown.

Vodka. No, it’s not to drink and give up on dandelions. She has a different goal. This method was invented in the 1930s in the USA. Its essence is as follows: 150 g of vodka should be diluted in 10 liters of water and poured over the soil in the garden with this solution a month before sowing or planting cultivated plants. After such watering in your beds … weeds will sprout en masse – almost all seeds will germinate. “And what’s the catch?” – you ask. And the fact that you once run through your beds with a hoe and forget about weeds for almost the whole summer, because there will be no seeds left in the soil – alcohol will stimulate their germination. In the summer, of course, new ones will fly in, but not in such numbers – it will be much easier to deal with them.

Popular questions and answers

We talked about the fight against dandelions with agronomist Svetlana Mikhailova.

Sources of

1. Gruzdev G.S. Chemical protection of plants (edited by G.S. Gruzdev – 3rd ed., revised and additional) // M .: Agropromizdat, 1987 – 415 p.
2. State catalog of pesticides and agrochemicals approved for use on the territory of the Federation as of July 6, 2021 // Ministry of Agriculture of the Federation, https://mcx.gov.ru/ministry/departments/departament-rastenievodstva-mekhanizatsii-khimizatsii -i-zashchity-rasteniy/industry-information/info-gosudarstvennaya-usluga-po-gosudarstvennoy-registratsii-pestitsidov-i-agrokhimikatov/
3. Shuvaev Yu.N. Soil nutrition of vegetable plants // M.: Eksmo, 2008 – 224 p.