I pour boiling water on the darn things--very satisfying to see the weeds cook and not get a chance to flower or seed. For flat weeds a sprinkle of salt in the center of the weed--shrivels it up within an hour!!! Sandra

I have a piranha steamer, it comes with a hose and a pointy nozzle that can be used to get right in amongst the roots. I normally wait until i can smell the roots cooking, although some need a follow up steaming.

Sandra, I intend to try your boiling water on a patch of Onion weed that appeared in my garden a few months ago, have tried everything else I can think of, thanks for the tip.

The steamer sounds like the only way to get rid of oxalia.

I saw on gardening aust ages ago where they used a drop of sewing machine oil on onion weed in a lawn, its supposed to run down and smother the bulb or something, Im not sure how organic that is though!? I usually put newspaper under mulch and it works really well where the weeds are out of control but I think onion weed would still survive it, but if you have lots of other weeds you want to get rid of it does a good job.

Hi,
I use to have a steam wallpaper stripper that I got from our local DIY in the UK. It came with a number of adaptors.
One of these I found really good for steam sterilizing seed trays of certain composts and also small areas of the garden that had a particular weed problem. Try looking for steam wallpaper strippers over here - might end up lucky.
Cheers Jan

I read recently that onion weed can be deal with by dipping scissors into a mix of 50/50 round up and water and cutting off the tips.

With regard to weeds in very small cracks of the grass variety, i've killed them off ok, but how the heck do you get em out? Is there some kind of tool that would be terribly logical but has escaped me?
thanks
Cate

In Winter/spring I have problms with Soursobs and in summer convululous. Any ideas? I hear that we can feed soursobs to death but it would kill my natives. And the convululous is extremely persistent to everything we have tried.

Shelley

Ree rees solution of the piranha steamer seems well designed for the job I want to do. Too many other plants around to pour boiling water over. I have quite a large area under gardens and am fighting a battle with oxalis and euphorbia and with a suitable baffle should be able to be very selective about what gets cooked. Thanks for all your input - Robyn

How does the steaming work. I could see it killing the foliage but not the roots. I bought a normal housegold steamer off GMA and with it I received a free little one. I wonder if that would be any good for the job?

Shelley

Shelleyvw, I think your right it would kill some weeds outright but with deep rooted, bulbous or couchtype weeds I doubt it would be successfull without repeat applications. My main problem is with weed seedlings which come up when I pull the mulch back to plant. As this land has not been cultivated for over 30 years there is quite a store of weed seed sitting around just waiting for conditions to be right for germination and of course as soon as I plant, dig and water off they go - I have a large area to maintain and will never get away completely from hand weeding, but I think that steam or flame weeders will help me keep on top of the weeds when my back says its had enough. Im also planting a lot of succulents around and under the trees and while I use paper and mulch on the gardens I cannot mulch right up to the succulents.It seems every solution also has its limitations but in combination I hope I will be able to reduce the physical side of weeding without resorting to roundup/etc

I can assure you that the steamer does not work on weeds coming up between pavers. I think the roots are too well protected. The foliage takes a small beating but the plant recovers quickly and so it's back to other methods to remove the weed.

Hi plantsplus it would be worth a try if they are only little weeds. I think my weeds have deeps bulbs or roots
:-(

Shelley

Onion weed is killed by machine oil (which in fact by its very nature is organic! - ie long carbon chains). Most other weed scan be hand removed. Just make sure you get them before they set seed, and if they have a tuberous root, remove that too. Keep the mulch up on the garden and your lawn healthy. After a year or so, your weed problems should be just about over. I have tried this and it has worked.

Sorry for taking my time in replying, was on holiday and couldn't remember my user name!?
The piranha has an extension hose and a pointy nozzle that can get in right to the roots, you'll know you've done enough when the smell of steamed weed comes through.
The theory being that if you damage the roots near the surface they won't be able to carry water and nutrients to the plant above.
I'm relativly new to gardening and I have only done this once so I would be interested to see how anyone else finds this technique.
P.S. don't let your wanted plants see this cruel form of weeding, it might scare the manure out of them!

I have come to this post looking for an answer to the weed problem. Long ago I was in contact with an aged male, a geologist, who when given a problem weed would tell you what mineral salt or rock dust to apply to them to kill them off. His answer was based upon what was not in the soil which these particular weeds would not like and hence die off. This appears to be VERY organic and I would love to know where he got his knowledge, any ideas??? Mind you I have also used the boiling water treatment for my weeds which if great if you only have a small area to do.