Weeding Out Your Patio Problem, The Environmental Way – When weeds start sprouting up on your lawn and in your flower beds, yes, it’s frustrating, but there’s still that little voice at the back of your mind that says, “meh, it’s okay, you can’t really see them anyway.” It’s the old out of sight out of mind thing.
Unfortunately, you don’t get this luxury when weeds start bursting out of the seams of your patio and driveway and garden paths, rising up from the deep, dark cracks like Sauron’s army. Seriously, apart from Donald Trump’s hair, it’s the worst thing known to mankind. They’re unsightly, they’re unignorable and, worst of all, they’re inexplicably annoying to remove.
With garden weeds, you just grab ‘em by the base, pull them out and then laugh at how pathetic they were at resisting you. But with patio-slash-driveway-slash-path weeds, ah man, these suckers know how to put up a fight. And even if you do manage to pull one out, it will only be part of it because you don’t get the root, and that’s because they’ve managed to squeeze into the most minute cracks possible, sort of like a gaggle of evil contortionists.
But, despite what history tells you, there are ways to get rid of these eyesores without too much cussing and swearing and, best of all, you can do it without using harsh chemicals too, as you’re about to find out.
1. Simple Screwdriver:
The reason Keen Kevin hasn’t got any weeds crawling out from every crack in his garden is because he has a dandelion digger, which you can go out and buy yourself. If, however, you don’t want to be the kind of person that owns a dandelion digger, then a flathead screwdriver will do fine. All you need to do is dig and scrape the weeds out, making sure you get as much of their root systems out as well.
2. Boil The Kettle:
This has to be the best option, which is partly because everyone deserves a good cuppa tea (milk and one, if you’re asking), but mainly because it works so well when you pour it on the weeds you can’t bear to look at any longer. And the reason it works so well is simple: extreme heat kills weeds. Like proper kills them. Including the roots. And, like we said, you get to slurp on a lovely drink while you do it (#winning).
3. Fight Fire With Fire:
Everyone is a pyromaniac. Everyone. Even if it is just a small percentage of your makeup, we all love man’s red flower, which is good news for you because weeds hate it. Our advice: go to a cooking shop or hardware store (whatever’s closest) and buy yourself a propane torch or flamethrower (whatever’s cheapest) and then just start flaming the suckers. Of course, if you want to keep up with keen Kevin, then we recommend you buy a wand-style-flamethrowing-weed-killer, which won’t just let you spot kill your weeds but do it from a standing position too. How handy is that!
4. DIY Destroyer:
For those that a) loved science at school or b) loved Breaking Bad as an adult, there is a way you can create your own environmentally-friendly weed-killing potion. All you need is two pints of vinegar, a quarter of a cup of salt and two tablespoons of whatever dishwasher powder you use, then stir it all together until that salt dissolves and add it to a spray bottle. Voila, you have your own weed warrior. All you have to do now is wait for the forecast to say it’s going to be sunny for a couple of days (good luck with that!) and then spray your weeds.
5. Perfect Pulling Weeds:
Believe it or not, pulling out weeds is one of the most effective ways you can get rid of them, especially with those that have toproots (yeah, we’re looking at you Mr Dandelion). The trick is to time your pulling right, which means waiting for the soil to be nice and moist. Of course, what you can do is water the ground heavily yourself, wait a few minutes and then pull steadily until the weed comes out, all of it.
And there we have it, your weeds have been annihilated and the planet has been saved. It’s part popper time.
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