Round-up will kill anything green. It is not active in the soil. It is an ideal way to start a new garden spot. If you spray something by mistake, wash it off emediately. Use only low pressure spray to avoid wind drift.

Forgot to mention in case you didn't know, there is several formulas of Round-UP. Check the label and it should be 41 to 50%. Not the premixed stuff.

Mentioning round up on the boards is like asking for people to smack you but I would say go for it...I use it on the outside of my fence to keep the weeds down....and if something pops its head through the granite in the middle of my aisles, and it doesn't come out with one hard tug, it gets roundup...

Ruthie is quite right - Roundup is a very hot-button topic. Link below is to just a few of the more recent discussions you might want to review for details on pros, cons, use restrictions, advantages, hazards, etc., etc., etc.

But whatever you decide - Please, read the label and directions carefully and if you decide to use it, follow the directions carefully. Sounds like common sense I know but you would be amazed how many don't do it.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Roundup

Thumbnick:
Gardening is supposed to involve a little bit of effort - it's good for your health to dig in the dirt. Saddle up that garden fork and take out the grass manually.

You'll get to know your soil better and you won't have any lingering worries about what that herbicide is doing to you, your family, your soil organisms, the birds, the fish (it goes into the ground water, you know) your pets, the possums and squirrels, the ladybugs, the butterflies...

There's plenty of evidence about the damage Roundup does, directly and indirectly, longterm and short-term.

And why deprive yourself of some great exercise and the pleasure of building the garden with your own hands?
-O

Another way to smother a grassy area to make a garden for next year is to use either several layers of newspaper or a layer of cardboard. Wet down the area, put down your paper or cardboard, then wet it down until it's pretty well sopping. Put some mulch (chopped up leaves or straw works great) over that. Let it sit until spring, till it in and you're ready to go. No chemicals needed.

When I am controlling a 20'x50' potteger garden area, I attempt to cover the weeds with newspaper, cardboard and old carpet. Cover the paths with pea gravel.
The rest of the acre does get treated with round-up or mowed (the edges can't be mowed)
Ya do what you have to do!
NT

I ditto the cardboard use. That is what I do. I recently acquired a load of furniture cartons and just cut them open and dropped them on THE ALREADY CUT grass and in 30 days or so NO MORE GRASS.

1eyedJack and the Dawg

The cardboard works really well and it attracts a multitude of earthworms. The cardboard won't break down by spring but that's ok. It'll smother everything growing under it....except the worms:)

I find large pieces of cardboard in dumpsters behind mattress stores.

Roundup is the world leading vegitation control. Some of you should stay in the house and not bother to do any gardening or yard work. Roundup must be used properly especially not in a hap hazord manner.Pitfalls of using roundup are always traced back to the user.

Roundup is some useful stuff.

It's a shame that every purchase of it funds activities who's purpose is to destroy the norms/morals most people in the gardening (read: not commercial agriculture) community hold close.

We make these decisions with too many products these days.

I garden using organic methods, but at times I do you the Round up. After much introspection and many gallons of 20% vinegar that would not wipe out Bermuda stands I came to the conclusion that Round up was better than repeated tilling and overworking of the soil...

Please read the link written by a man I look up to on why I feel it is justifiable.

Here is a link that might be useful: Nature can approve of Round up.

The makers of pesticides and herbicides will tell the public whatever they wish to hear - in order to enable people to justify to themselves the purchase and use of their poisons. To the manufacturer, it is only business. That Roundup is "harmless" and "disappears" is a marketing fairy tale.
-O

I think it rather depends on the type of grass you have as to what you do with it. Some grasses are easy to smother with cardboard, newspaper, or compost. They can also be turned under during digging and will die without light. The dead grasses will add valuable nutrients to the soil as they decompose. Or you could use black plastic. Other, more invasive grasses such as couch are harder to get rid of but can be smothered if you leave the cover on longer term e.g for a whole growing season. Alternatively they can be removed by thorough and meticulous digging with a fork if you don't want to use herbicides. Once you have the beds clear of grass it is a question of maintaining them that way, which you can do either by traditional digging or by mulching. My allotment was infested with couch which took me about 3 seasons to tame by smothering and persistent forking. Since then (around 15 years) I have maintained it by cultivation alone. I have never used herbicide on it.

Roundup - shortcut to death and destruction. Biological warfare in your very own backyard, voluntarily applied in the name of convenience. Roundup is the new DDT.
-O

I am all for organics and gardening the natural way and doing no harm. That is why I think Round up is sometimes acceptable. I do wish that We could discuss this wiothout the emotional Dogma that some organic gardners have adopted. If a gardner used no chemical insecticides and is completely organic other than having to use Round up to irradicate a problem, I would still consider them natural and organic and not insane.
Do I sitll use Vineger? Yes. I use it around my trees and plantings where overspray of a systemic herbicide would be a problem.. I also found that using it mixed with RU is extremely effective compared to either one used alone.

For many farmers Round up is the only practical way to go no till. I would rather have round up used than excessive tillage.

I use round up to clear the area before I built my raised beds. I killed off the entire area of bermuda with two applications of round up. I ten built the raised beds directly on top of the dead bermuda.

Then I planted vegatables...Yummy.

No innocent plants died in the application of this politically maligned herbicide.
{{gwi:115270}}

It's not so much the use of Roundup (used responsibly) that concerns me most. It's the people who make the Roundup that troubles me. "They" are the world's largest supplier of vegetable seeds. They're also the world's largest manufacturer of poisons and pollutants. AND..."they" are responsible for destroying the environment in Latin American countries and abroad.

"They" are also responsible for destroying the liveyhood of many, many American farmers. No doubt in my mind...

But don't get me going...

Here is a link that might be useful: Biodevastation

Just because you don't like something doesn't mean you can just make up stuff about it.

If your message is activist in nature, your message should at least be based in reality or backed up with some kind of research, even if it is debated research. The message is without meaning, otherwise.

Yes, its not 100% safe and there's been evidence of human harm, but most of the harm studies have findings that pale to other herbicides on the market.

I'm a lot more concerned by the type of business and cultural/social practices Monsanto funds with the selling of their products, including Roundup, more than Roundup itself.

People i know that are huge supporters of it (mostly commercial growers) are concerned about the impact of emerging "roundup-resistant/ready" weeds which are already breaking out world-wide. Heck, the US govt. has sprayed so much of the stuff on drug fields in South America that they have resistant coca plants cultivars in use for quite a while.

If people dont quit using so much of it the "next step" in herbicide control might not be so "mostly-safe" as roundup is.

In defense of Agent opps RoundUP. Only kidding LOL I have the giant economy size myself as I am too old and crippled to bend over and pull up all those darn weeds. It does have its uses and like most good things there are people that abuse it.
I start with the Cardboard and what is left I nuke with RoundUp. A quart lasts me several years.

1eyedJack and the Dawg

I know the politics of the issue and everyone has the right to not buy a product for activist reasons based on a personal belief that the corporate goals are contrary to ones own self interest or protesting (GMO's and seed strain licensing )
But instead of stating how harmful the product is, it is more accurate to state that the patent holder (Monsanto) participates in monopolistic GMO seed contracts and is trying to take over the industrialized agriculture sector and that some of the profit from the sale of Round up or a generic brand is going back to Monsanto.

To exaggerate the toxicology of the product is not fair to Gardner's and market farmers that could benefit from it. They can make up their own minds about the morality of purchasing a Monsanto product.

I am very Organic but I try to leave my activism at the door.
Many people quit organic practices because of the "Dogma" involved with following guidelines. As far as I know I don't need anyone's approval on how to run my garden. I try to do things that do no harm and I try to build the biodiversity within my property. This is vegetable gardening. It is supposed to be fun. If someone does not have a way to effectively control weeds according to these "rules" then they may just quit organic gardening altogether.

I think it is better to promote educated and responsible use if it is absolutely necessary.
People should be able to make up their own mind based on the an educated Rick-vs- benefit assessment.
I do not wish to argue with my fellow gardeners. I am all for everyone's effort to reduce harm in our own ways, but by stooping to unfounded fears we can disenfranchise neophyte gardeners who are trying to go as organic as they can.

I apologize if I offended anyone in my posts(by going against the standard organic mantra and status quo). I only wish to help those who ask advice find the most safe and practical solution for them.

Nick!! Now that you are confused about your project, let us all know how it turned out next spring. I am a master gardener and a landscape contractor. Roundup is my best employee. I never use roundup directly in the garden, but I have to use it under my electric fences. With 2 gardens, 60 X 120 it's the only way to go. Good luck next year.

Beautiful post Bryan.....I couldn't agree more.

Good post Bryan! Like I said up front, it's a hot button topic, too hot for some on both sides to deal with in an objective manner. But you did it with class. ;) Thanks.

Nick - bottom line - it's your choice. ;) Good luck with your garden.

Dave

Just my 2 cents:
Why would you want to use something that KILLS vegetation where you want to GROW vegetation? Especially when it's easy to use cardboard or newspaper to kill weeds without chemicals. At least try another method first. . .Bottom line for me is that if something is harmful to other living organisms, it can't be too good for me, no matter how far up the food chain I may be. And I'm also quite fond of the lower links. LOL

Read

Here is a link that might be useful: How Round up works.

The way "we" use Roundup as a culture is the main problem with the use issue to me.

The popular Roundup commercials shows two extremely manly types facing off to tackle nature wild-west style to kill 2 weeds sticking up out of a sidewalk. This approach is more for the 'lawn care' soldiers who want to "tame" nature like spraying a cat in the face with a waterbottle to teach it a lesson.

Now, *we* as gardeners know that if you just pour some boiling water on that situation...that situation is taken care of. Same outcome...dead weed.

We're stuck with a lot of things here with its use...

1- how the company says we should use it (on everything, everywhere)

2- how it SHOULD be used by most people (selectively and sparingly)

3- how the major purchasers of the stuff actually use it (mass spraying of fields and roadways, usually by its biggest purchaser the government)

4- the lack of alternative herbicide education and/or "laziness"

...now there are people who have to use a bit of it even if they're not lazy. There's the physically disabled...there's places where you just can't easily get to in order to apply alternative methods...and more.

This is a social issue as much as a chemical issue going on here.

At 82 years of age, I find Roundup is what enables me to keep gardening. Especially on what we call witch grass - the stuff with the long stolons where if you break a piece it promptly turns into a new plant. But also good for weeds which my arthritic fingers can't pull. And yes, I do use newspaper mulch and other mulch but there are some situations where Roundup is the answer. I mix it up in a hand held squeeze sprayer (also good hand therapy) so I'm not covering the world with it (sprayer previously held premixed Roundup so it contains label and all the warnings).
I'm not a Monsanto fan but this is a good product and I'm not about to cut off my nose to spite my face.

Nice post, Brian; it really sums up the argument.

If anyone has read my posts on the Hot Topics forum (and a few other places), you know that I am no fan of Monsanto & their fellow players in mainstream agriculture. I am an organic gardener, a preservationist, and a member of the Seed Savers Exchange, with many objections to the the way that those companies do business. They have undue influence over our government "regulators", those who farm for a living, and the food that sustains us. 'Nuf said... a topic to discuss in greater detail in another place.

That being said... vegetable gardening should not be a religion. It is, in fact, one of the ultimate expressions of freedom; the right to control what enters our bodies, from seed to kettle. I don't push my beliefs to the exclusion of all others, and don't hold a lot of respect for those who do - even if they happen to agree with me. Ideology should never get in the way of common sense.

Sometimes there is more than one way to skin a cat (metaphorically speaking) and sometimes there is not. Weed killers, used properly & in moderation, are not the threat some would make them out to be. A one-time use to prepare a new bed, while it is not the only method that might work, will cause no lasting harm. For the elderly or disabled, it may be the only practical way to continue their gardening.

I have used it myself along an electric fence line. When someone shows me a better way to keep perennials from constantly shorting out 500 feet of fence, I'll use it. For the last three years, the Wife & I have cut the weeds beneath the bottom wire by hand, many times throughout the summer... but we are getting on in years, and the time will come when that is no longer possible.

My garden is a major part of my food supply, and that fence is all that keeps other mouths from devouring my food. If I have to choose between spraying something that I personally dislike, and losing my dietary independence, there may turn out to be only one way to skin that cat. I'll agonize over it... but I'll do what I must. No one else can - or should - make that decision for me.

However, the continuous or widespread application of herbicides is another matter. Like many other things in life, when used indiscriminately, they can cause great & lasting harm to both our health & our environment. And like other poisons (such as insecticides) they are best used as a last resort, not as the first recourse... and then, used sparingly.

Round Up is apparently one of the most widely-used chemicals in agriculture. Apparently one of Round Up's side effects is that it changes the reproductive organs in male frogs. Frogs being mammals like humans, so make your own choice about using Round Up.

Posted by marquette Zone 6 NY (My Page) on Wed, Oct 10, 07 at 22:28

Apparently one of Round Up's side effects is that it changes the reproductive organs in male frogs. Frogs being MAMMALS(caps by Bryan to illustrate) like humans, so make your own choice about using Round Up.

Any questions on the veracity of the anti round up questions so far?? More dogma than science. I am sorry to use your post as an example Marquette as I am sure we would agree on most gardening matters.

If anyone wants to post any scientific papers or references to white papers on toxicology I would be glad to read them.
I struggled with this for a long time and I found very little independent research that was negative. Yes, there are negative papers, but look at the sources. Let's not mix activist politics with our science.

There are plenty of studies, published papers, etc. on the harmful effects of Roundup.

I find it interesting that those in this discussion who feel strongly about maintaining a 100% organic practice are being called "activists" and their statements "dogma."

I really should take the high road. I should.
I personally hate the company, but the product is useful. A perfect world it is not.

Since everyone else seems averse to actually posting links I will do a few for those interested in the toxicology of Round Up. You will see wild claims but rarely in a scientific white paper by a credentialed professional in the matter.
I personally fight for organics and sustainability. I purchase organic food when I can't grow enough of my own, I don't buy or eat feed lot beef etc.

Here are some great links
First I like Wiki- Sources are noted, and where they are not noted for statements you will seethe (citations needed) instead of the resource number.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate

http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2007/03/roundup-is-safe.html
"TOXICITY REVIEW
Acute (Mammalian)
Glyphosate has reported oral LD5Os of 4,320 and 5,600 mg/kg in male and female rats (15,4). The oral LD5Os of the two major glyphosate products Rodeo and Roundup are 5,000 and 5,400 mg/kg in the rat (15). A dermal LD5O of 7,940 mg/kg has been determined in rabbits (15,4). There are reports of mild dermal irritation in rabbits (6), moderate eye irritation in rabbits (7), and possible phototoxicity in humans (9). The product involved in the phototoxicity study was Tumbleweed marketed by Murphys Limited UK (9). Maibach (1986) investigated the irritant and the photo irritant responses in individuals exposed to Roundup (41% glyphosate, water, and surfactant); Pinesol liquid, Johnson Baby Shampoo, and Ivory Liquid dishwashing detergent. The conclusion drawn was that glyphosate has less irritant potential than the Pinesol or the Ivory dishwashing liquid (120).
Metabolism
Elimination of glyphosate is rapid and very little of the material is metabolized (6,106).
Subchronic/Chronic Studies (Mammalian)
In subchronic tests, glyphosate was administered in the diet to dogs and rats at 200, 600, and 2,000 ppm for 90 days. A variety of toxicological endpoints were evaluated with no significant abnormalities reported (15,10). In other subchronic tests, rats received 0, 1,000, 5,000, or 20,000 ppm (57, 286, 1143 mg/kg) in the diet for 3 months. The no observable adverse effect level (NOAEL) was 20,000 ppm (1,143 mg/kg) (115). In the one year oral dog study, dogs received 20, 100, and 500 mg/kg/day. The no observable effect level (NOEL) was 500 mg/kg (116)."

http://www.pan-uk.org/pestnews/actives/glyphosa.htm

The theme here is. Don't ingest it. (would you ingest fish fertilizer? I got food poisoning from it once as a kid because I didn't wash my hands after handling...not pleasant)

Again Don't drink it, don't spray it in your eyes, don't Walk around barefoot while it is wet or spray it on your skin. The best method is in a pump up sprayer on a calm day to minimize drift. I adjust the nozzle for a course spray, not atomizing the fluid like I would for foliar feeding. This prevents drift and forces the fluid to go on the target and not into the air where you can breath it, get it into your eyes or on your skin or have unintentional drift. Care when applying is all that is needed. Once the treatment area is dry it is safe to enter and work around.

My occupation is a Safety Professional. By reviewing the MSDS if I was to have an employee applying this material for me I would require long pants and shoes and Rubber or other light chemical resistant gloves and goggles while pouring or transferring it but not necessarily for the application.. The reason I would recommend this is that is the recommendation of the msds http://www.kellysolutions.com/erenewals/documentsubmit/KellyData%5CNC%5Cpesticide%5CMSDS%5C74530%5C74530-4%5C74530-4_GLYPHOSATE_41__11_30_2006_4_57_38_PM.pdf

And the fully formulated MSDS
http://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/Monsanto-Roundup-MSDS-Docs7017.htm

Recognizing, controlling protecting from and eliminating hazards are what I do for a living. I would follow the manufacturers instructions and recommend anyone do the same.
To put this into perspective you will be exposed to between 100 and 200 PPM of benzene the next time you fill your fuel tank at the self service pump. If you can smell gas, you are being exposed. The Occupational action level where mitigation is required is 1 PPM.
A person can apply round up and not be exposed to any substances listed as hazardous with a Threshold limit value by the American council if industrial hygienist or a Permissible exposure limit by OSHA.

Get this. Alaska fish fertilizer has phosphoric acid that does have a PEL and TLV. http://www.growercentral.com/UPLOADS/PDFS/alaska%20fish%20fertilizer%205-1-1%20msds%20(02-05).pdf
EMERGENCY OVERVIEW: Potential Health Effects: Primary Entry Routes: Eyes, skin, ingestion. Target Organs:
Eyes, skin, gastrointestinal tract. Acute Effects: Eye: May cause irritation, redness and/or burning. Skin: May cause
irritation, redness and/or burning. Ingestion: May be harmful if swallowed. May cause abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting
and/or diarrhea.
Medical Conditions Aggravated by Long-Term Exposure: Persons with existing skin lesions should exercise caution
when using or handling this product. Chronic Effects: Prolonged skin contact may cause dermatitis.

I am not going to quit using Alaska Fish fertilizer either nor am I giving up fueling my vehicles.

I would post opposing views but the first one I opened Had a Trojan horse so if you are going to be searching for counterpoints do not open
The link from naturescountrystore.com!!! It's infected with a trojan horse.

Used according the the label, it's very very very very safe. Perfectly understood, and completely harmless, no. Such is life.

You take risks every single day that are much bigger than using a bit of glyphosate once in a while to kill a few weeds. It's a valuable tool in the arsenal of any gardener.

Guys and Girls,
Come on now, we are flogging an already dead horse. This has been hashed over way to long. To each his own and let the other party go their own way.
I use it.
My neighbor does not, but she is still a good person and down deep so am I (At least my Mother said so).

Jack and the Dawg