Okay, so like, maybe I am. But I didn’t plant them. Our house was a foreclosure. That means we bought it cheap from the bank because the previous owners didn’t take care of it and decided not to pay the mortgage. So naturally, we have mostly weeds and barely any grass. The entire yard is filled with this horrid crab grass.
Weeds are like problems. Let one get out of hand …let one go to seed…
and the whole dad gum yard is filled up with them. They are alive and they grow fast and pretty soon, there are so many that it seems overwhelming…you just don’t know where to start.
Other people’s weeds can blow their seeds into a perfect lawn. You have to be on your toes all the time to have the perfect lawn. Is it worth it?
If you are the only one who cares, there’s a rough road ahead.
I care, though. I want a nice pretty lawn. But I’m a cheapskate tightwad and I don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars a month paying someone to spray my yard with chemicals and fertilizers. So I started thinking. How can I have a beautiful yard and not spend any money at all?
I tried weed killer. But this is Texas crabcrass and weed killer is like fertilizer to this stuff. I tried to pull it out, but the roots are too deep and there’s so many of them.
So then I had it. I decided to boil them all to death. So for the past three days I have been boiling water in the kettle and pouring boiling water on each and every nest of crabgrass in the yard.
This is a great way to meet up with neighbors and catch the latest gossip. And speaking of gossip, I made a joke that the neighbor killed his wife and stuck her on a moving van. Well I was half right. It turns out that the crazy lady that lives behind me has a daughter who shot herself a few weeks ago. Yup. She killed herself. I kinda feel bad, but still, you know. I guess she’s such a psychopath that she ran her own kid into the ground. Talk about naysayers.
So here’s my strategy for the thrifty lawn:
Step 1 : Kill all weeds
Step 2: Fertilize with fish fertilizer and epsom salts in the springtime
Step 3: Let the grass grow so long that it grows to seed while keeping out all the bad weeds.
Step 4: Mow the thick lush lawn.
Step 5: Ignore comments made by naysayers who want to tell me this won’t work, but have no earthly idea what will work.
By the way, I can afford to spend loads of money on my lawn, but I am saving money to purchase rental property. I don’t want to look poor, and yet at the same time, I don’t want to spend money. There is method to my madness. I promise.
A small amount of round up applied with spot treating to the ‘Dallas Grass’ in very early spring will kill or weaken it so that you can hand pull what is left or regrows. Scott’s southern lawn products on bermuda do wonders. Weed-b-gone gets most of the rest of the weeds. It’s a struggle every year, but that has been working for me. I have no more of that crab grass stuff. All together, I spend about 180 bucks per year on lawn products and have a decent looking lawn.
I am (already) awaiting your report on victory over that [unfit for print] crabgrass.
I’ve actually been looking for some good lawn care advice. Think I’ll give this a try. I don’t have any neighbors. Just want my kids to enjoy playing in our yard and not feel like they’re in the Moabi Desert.
Terrific… I simply loved this particular post!
Roundup will destroy anything that grows. Glad you stopped by my site!!
It is your yard; do as you wish. I can’t use your strategy on my lawn. All the grass died in the back during the heavy rains a couple of years ago. But, in my town, you can’t let your lawn grow high enough to go to seed; you get in trouble for that. I will have to spend some money, but I am working with someone to make sure I only spend it once.
Scott
There’s nothing as satisfying as a beautiful lawn – plus beautiful gardens to go with it. I also fight the crab grass issue as that’s what the developers mixed in with Bermuda grass and I truly despise it. I’ve taken up almost 1/3 of our front lawn and 1/2 of the back lawn by digging down into the earth a good 9 inches and removing all roots and the mesh the Bermuda grass sodding was planted with. This is the only way I’ve found to get rid of it completely. I augmented the soil for my flower beds where I tore out the grass with a pH balanced soil and subsequently have some great gardens going. It is a ton of work in the beginning – hundreds of hours but it doesn’t cost much to do -just a lot of sweat and hard labor. I use a New England slicer spade to go around the gardens once a month during the growing season to keep the grasses from creeping in and keep a deep layer of mulch on the gardens year round. I’ll be anxious to hear how your lawn turns out.
OMG!!!! You are hilariously weird! I can relate to that!! What is with the NOSE!! LOLOLOL!
)!
Just nuke the whole yard from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Loved the post and have to say, I’m an organic gardener. Roundup goes into the groundwater so we are drinking that stuff. I got rid of weeds pretty much the way you are doing it. Except I added a little white vinegar to the boiling water. It’s cheap. I used water that I boiled pasta or veggies in so I didn’t waste water. If you cook veggies (not pasta) and let the water cool, it can be nutritious for your garden. I applaud your attemps at a lucious lawn. They are so nice to sit on and watch the world go by or watch your kids do cartwheels.:)
Thanks for the like and good luck with your blog.
Madness
Which is better yours or your neighbors?
I prefer mine. : )
Some kinds of madness bring so much sadness and are a cry out for help.
I feel sad for that lady. : (
Tragic enough to lose a child. : (
I threw out, onto the grass, the pot of boiling water from when I was canning. It KILLED the grass in that spot. However, the grass is slowly growing back so I think weeds will too. My suggestion for weeds is undiluted vinegar or bleach.
It is sorta awkward sometimes…I will make a morbid joke like that one and the next thing you know it is tragically true to some extent or another…and I have been known to laugh in uncomfortable situations…I would have failed epically if what happened to you happened to me.
As for the weeds…I don’t have that problem cause most shit dies out here…but I am going to start tending some sort of garden with desert winter appropriate veggies and such…I guess that is a bonus for living out here in the middle of no where.
I once made up a macabre story to explain an unusual absence and, without knowing it, was spot on. Those in the know wondered how I could have known. It led to my assumption that, only in fiction can one really tell the truth.
I don’t do chemicals. To tame weeds, I solarize. I pull the worst of them, water and cover with black plastic in the hot sun. Over this, a layer of clear plastic–to trap even more heat. I’ve been successful with this several times. My most successful time, though, I did all the work and then walked away from both the house and the marriage. I don’t know it the weeds came back that time, only that they didn’t bother me anymore.
I have read that boiling water kills weeds, so I am with you. Skip the pesticides.
This may well be a better way of managing ‘weeds,’ but consider this: lawn grass is the #1 most irrigated crop in the US. We throw out unconscionable amounts of potable water for something that just sits there and looks good. This seems extremely profligate to me. Please tell me you are planning a garden or something.
Are you a suburban gardener? I saw all these videos on You Tube on Permaculture and Suburban Gardening and I eliminated all grass in my back yard and covered it with garden. I don’t actually water my front lawn, I do water the fig trees and the apple tree, and the raspberries, but the reason , i guess that I have so much crab grass is the fact that that stuff grows a foot per week in the 110 squelching heat of summer. I swear, you can dig that stuff up and it will survive 10 years with no water. I will be surprised if boiling water will actually do the trick, that stuff is like mutant cockroaches.
I’ve been in charge of my parents’ garden for the past five years or so. We recently moved, but we always do peas, beans, tomatoes, greens like kale or collards, broccoli rabe, and sometimes hot peppers.
The last time I grew broccoli, it tasted terrible. Maybe I cooked it wrong or I picked it too late. Do you pick your broccoli right away.
Broccoli rabe is an Italian variety that is leafier and less woody than standard broccoli. I think you might have better luck with that as long as you pick it before it flowers.
I am definately going to try broccoli rabe. Is it the kind that you can just keep on picking over and over again without the plant dying.
Not in my experience, but maybe I’m not doing it right.
In all seriousness, my husband sprays a chemical called 2-4D on our lawn every spring. It kills everything except grass. He only does it once a year, and reseeds any bare spots. We have a lawn like a golf course and it requires little work.
So 2-4D works? How much did you spend to spray your entire lawn and does it kill crab grass?
About $30 for two gallons. He says it took one gallon to do the yard and we have an acre. I believe it kills crab grass.
Good to know. I am going to give it a try. I am so sick of that horrid crab grass. Thanks for the advice.
I pour boiling water on the oxalis that inhabits my garden. It works well. A whole lawn requires tenacity, and it sounds like you have that! (And it’s free!)
Oh Good Lord Almighty. I can not believe that you are killing oxalis! Are you talking about that pretty little clover with they tiny pink flowers. My husband’s grandmother was looking everywhere for that a couple years ago so she could edge her garden with that. I think you can sell that on Ebay. She gave me a start of that and I have that in my garden. Weird.
Learn to love your outer weeds and you will love your inner weeds.
I need to love weeds? Are you serious? Do you, by any chance, have a pet rat collection in your basement?
How did you guess?
They don’t have the run of the house, of course, except on their birthdays.
And Thanksgiving. They love turkey.
If it’s green then surely it doesn’t matter cos it’s the same colour as the grass anyway!
Ha
Don’t know what happened there. Right in mid-rant it went and posted my comment.
I was gonna say: Ha! I’ll swap you your girly crab grass for a good old garden full of MARE’S TAIL. that thing is a weed on steroids. It’s one of the oldest plants on God’s green earth and is virtually indestructible. However! Rogers knows the secret recipe that slays the weed from hell.
Has the crab grass spead so badly it’s started growing up your nose?
Thanks for liking my post. As for your crabgrass. You could try layering cardboard over it and covering it with some soil you can likely get for free on Craig’s list. It might not be the best quality but you don’t have to remove the cardboard cause it rots eventually and you can plant a good lawn seed mix for your area in the new soil next spring. It might work…
As a matter of fact, I did sheet mulching to my back yard. I have awesome soil back there.
What the heck is mare’s tail? Are you growing horses in your yard. You know you can sell them for glue, don’t you. I think they make twinkies out of it. And by the way, are you accusing me of having green nostril hair?
Thanks for liking my post. Best of luck with your lawn.
A small amount of roundup applied to that nose hair should do the trick
Yeah. That’s true. Do they sell Round up in pocket size for unwanted nostril growth.
Goats, cows, sheep, chickens all eat grass.
Rocks…that’s the answer. When northerners retire to Florida, they kill the grass and put down white rocks and stick a plastic flamingo in the yard…….hmmmm. Maybe you just need the flamingo!
Glad to see you aren’t congested! How are the tonsils doing?
Lol, that’s not my nose. Anyway, I have a neighbor that goes all out for christmas, I mean they’ve got a giant inflatable snow globe and Santa Claus and all the reindeer on the roof. So last year, at Christmas time, their accross the street neighbor stuck a pink flamingo in their yard as a joke. I thought this was funny because I thought about doing that.
Hilarious post!!!
We had an attempted murder by a father on our street – after we had had some unfortunate encounters with him which involved a lot of yelling and bad language. At the time, we joked that he was crazy…
I want to hear how that boiled water approach works. And, what is with the nose!!
My camera disappears frequently and when I get it back, I have some pretty interesting pictures taken by my kids. I think that’s my daughter’s nostril hair. So….a father on your street tried to kill who?
I don’t understand this American fetish for perfect green lawns. I’d much rather have a natural garden than one reliant on constant effort and regular application of chemicals. It’s just weird.
I really don’t get the fetish either. My sister lives in Las Vegas and everyone there just has rocks for their yard. I live in Texas and the grass is only green in the springtime. Then it dies in July unless you water it all the time. I don’t water my lawn and I don’t think the previous owners did either. Crab grass will grow 1 foot per week, I swear, and it’s this mutant evil stuff that sends out these ugly looking seed stalks and it just looks trashy and it lowers the property value of the house. I want to just have fruit trees in my yard, but that’s quite a task.
The answer may be goats. I used to live in Seattle, and the cool, hip way of keeping your rampant vegetation down is to hire goats. People actually make a living out of it. But maybe crabgrass woud be too much for them.
Crabs?
ahahaha
you’re a wicked woman Clotilda – great story, love the tongue-in-cheek sarcasm
Invite the Grasshoppers back – they’ll eat it for you lol
As a matter of fact, I am actually creating a breed of genetically modified grasshoppers to only eat crabgrass, but don’t tell anyone. It’s top secret. I am working on it with Monsonto, you know the evil Japanese soy bean manufacturer that steals your land if you grown their soybeans without a license.
I thought Monsanto was an American Company, are they really Japanese?