Weed Killin' Time

When we bought our house two years ago, (in Winter mind you) the back yard was filled with landscaping rocks. We didn't really think it was a big deal and the yard is small enough that we could move them pretty easily once Spring rolled around. Well, as time went on and Spring finally did arrive our wonderful rock filled yard became overrun with weeds. Upon inspection we found that whoever put the rocks down failed to cover the ground with landscaping paper first. Yay! Since The Toddler wasn't quite a toddler yet, we pretty much had our hands full with her, so we let the yard get out of control. This past Summer I pulled all of the weeds and got most of the rocks moved to one side of the yard. Since we didn't put down any grass when I moved the rocks the weeds just got worse. Now that Winter is approaching, and the weeds' growth has slowed, it's time to bring out the big guns. In the next few weekends we're pretty much going to drown the yard in weed killer, till it up, spray it down again and hope the weeds stay away until we can plant grass in the Spring. We also have a garden box in the back yard that we can't spray weed killer in, but I did read that boiling water does a good job of killing weeds, too.

I've never used weed killer and have always been against it because of the chemicals, but the condition of our yard limits our options. I wish we lived out in the middle of nowhere, so I could just burn them all, but maybe that day will come later in life :)

If any of you have suggestions for getting rid of weeds, I'm all ears! Anything to avoid spraying those chemicals.


Happy Wednesday!

-Shala-


PS. We've tried cutting the weeds and applying salt, covering the area with tarps and using vinegar. I think the big problem is that most of the weeds are vines that propagate with root sprouts, so they just pop up all over.