Allison's Star

 

I love this time of year. Everything is green and growing, blossoming, thriving. Even the weeds. Before you reach for something toxic to get rid of plants you didn’t plant, please consider a safer alternative. My personal favorite is boiling dihydrogen monoxide. That’s right. Water. I wait for a warm (or hot) sunny afternoon, fill my tea kettle and heat it until it whistles. Then I carry it outside and pour it – still boiling hot – right onto the weeds in the cracks of my front steps, sidewalk and driveway. Voila! Precise weed-killing, with no collateral damage. Unless, of course, I’m barefoot. For weeds cropping up in the lawn, I’ve an old-fashioned dandelion puller. You insert it into the soil alongside the root and use it like a lever to pop the weed, root and all, out of the lawn. If you’ve weeds that can’t be defeated with one of these two methods, you should put more thought into mulching.