{"id":461,"date":"2016-09-07T21:41:37","date_gmt":"2016-09-08T02:41:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lisa.rushworth.us\/?p=461"},"modified":"2016-09-11T22:03:06","modified_gmt":"2016-09-12T03:03:06","slug":"removing-weeds-from-walkways-and-patios","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/?p=461","title":{"rendered":"Removing Weeds From Walkways and Patios"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We have an aversion to chemical herbicides &#8211; both run-off and run-on (Anya feet), so have been trying to find a <em>good<\/em> way to keep the weeds out of our stone\/brick patio and walkways. Crawling around and pulling weeds is rather effective. Anya beams with pride each time she gets a root too. But it isn&#8217;t a sustainable weed-control method for the entire space. The string trimmer can be used to quickly cut existing growth, but since the roots remain &#8230; they return right quickly. I imagine the root system can only sustain regrowth for so long, but we&#8217;ve never managed to chop them enough to prevent regrowth.<\/p>\n<p>We had to clean our water softener&#8217;s brine tank &#8211; and I figure there had to be some basis in reality for the stories about Scipio Aemilianus salting Carthage after the Third Punic War. Not reality of the &#8220;he really did it&#8221; sense, but it isn&#8217;t like folklore has conquerors spreading well composted manure over the fields to render the soil useless. We pored the brine over our stone patio (I&#8217;m sure salt isn&#8217;t good for stone &#8230; but it had to go <em>somewhere<\/em>). There is one particular low-growing brownish-red weed that still grows, but it blends in well enough with the stone that I don&#8217;t really notice it. Other than that, though, *no* weeds for the entire summer. Burned the lawn some, and this is only useful if you find yourself with thirty gallons of brine that need to be dumped somewhere.<\/p>\n<p>Next year, I have more techniques that I want to test: vinegar, baking soda, and boiling water. Hopefully we&#8217;ll find a few more approaches. Then next Spring, we&#8217;ll do a controlled experiment. 1\/<em>n<\/em> of the patio and 1\/<em>n <\/em>of the front walkway will be weed-controlled with each method. We&#8217;ll see which one kills the weeds without running off into the surrounding lawn and which prevents new growth for the longest time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We have an aversion to chemical herbicides &#8211; both run-off and run-on (Anya feet), so have been trying to find a good way to keep the weeds out of our stone\/brick patio and walkways. Crawling around and pulling weeds is rather effective. Anya beams with pride each time she gets a root too. But it &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[38],"class_list":["post-461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homesteading","tag-gardening"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":462,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions\/462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}