Weed

So Spring is definitely springing and especially in the verdant cobbled lonnin outside my front door. 
To prevent it turning into a muddy wilderness I have tried various methods of keeping the weeds down over the years ranging from grubbing them up by hook and hand, (painful and ineffective) spot killing with weed-killer (poisonous and ineffective) hot-air blower (slow and ineffective) and strimming (faster but still ineffective)

In fact, it is quite sad to see all these thriving and hopeful plants cut down in their prime after the trials of finding a space between the stones for thrusting their delicate roots down. One of the reasons they are so vigorous and vibrant is that my neighbour loved to stand in his doorway see them flowering and as he had a terminal illness, we didn’t cut them much for a couple of years. It gave them a good hold and now there’s swathes of white clover, rosettes of shepherd’s purse, sunshiny dandelions of course, daisies, wood avens, teasle, spear-thistle, wild poppy, pineapple weed, ragwort and willowherb, wild oat grass, and clumps of couch grass. Last year a toad made its home under the foliage by the wall. However, re-wilding is now off the agenda.

Today’s trial was home-made weed killer. Mix:
Half a gallon of vinegar
Half a cup of salt
I tablespoon of washing-up liquid
Watering-can

I forgot the watering can has no rose, so I bored holes in the top of a plastic milk bottle, filled it and shook hard. It sort of worked.

I wondered how long it would be before progress would be seen and so was interested that there was definite wilting in a couple of hours. However, this does not promise death or long-term incapacity. We shall see.