135. My Garden Nemesis -- Well, One of Them, Anyway

Field Horsetail (Equisetum arvense)

Look like soft feathers All sweet green and innocent Kill those fuckers now ------------------------

There are no words to describe my loathing of this weed.  Not even one of my favorite curse words can begin to rise to the occasion. It is prehistoric and ineradicable. This is the one thing that, in a fit of pique, might even drive me to use Round-Up if it would even work.  But nope, nada.  Round-Up slows it down for a while and makes it look even worse than it does when it's just growing naturally, but nothing can get rid of this stuff. I just have to keep digging and pulling and digging and pulling and digging and pulling and swearing and digging and pulling, then drinking several gin-and-tonics, and turning a blind eye, and poking out my eyes, and falling on my sword, and.... oh, fuck it.  Just shoot me.

My tombstone haiku will read:

Left this earth too young 'twas the horsetails that killed her they never let up

---------------------------

I feel another haiku week coming on.  What say you?

Hank is no help at all with the horsetails. Lazy gnome bastard.

Comments

[Heather]

Okay I have to ask...what is Hank holding in his other hand. Not the one with the lantern. Maybe he has been holding the secret to the horsetails this whole time and just not sharing!

[Kristen]

What about one of those little propane flame torches? Or maybe rent a goat?

[Kristen]

Never mind. On further research I discovered that fire doesn't eradicate them and they're toxic to livestock. It appears that digging them up or repeated mowing are the only ways to get rid of them. Sorry. :(

[sandy]

Hank and haikus. It's a good morning so far!!! (I would haiku but it's too early. Later)

[Manise]

Very thankful that I don't have those here! Do they spread by seed dispersal or runners? Or not getting enough of the root and it pops up again with renewed vigor?

They can be used to scour apparently and are also a remedy, but I'm sure you don't want to hear about that!

Fitting tombstone haiku.

[Nora]

I'll take our garlic mustard, I think. Those things look lethal.

[Marcia Cooke]

At least the horsetail doesn't EAT all the bean seedlings like our resident woodchuck, but it's still bad, I agree. I'm thinking Agent Orange....

[Ellen]

My horrors are bindweed---smothers everything as it climbs up the plant, and mugwort. Both of these spread by runners, and unless you get the entire root, it will grow back. If you pull out the plant and leave 3 little broken root pieces behind, you get 3 bonus plants where you once had only 1. Worse than kudzu.

[Angie]

My husband (The Grumpy Farmer) says that 2-4-D or Dicamba. Will kill your dreaded horsetail weed. He says, mix per directions, perhaps put a squirt of Dawn dish soap in for some extra surfactant and you should be good to go. This will kill lots of other things as well, so be sure to apply it carefully to the "affected area".

[margene]

Horsetail hunkers down
Norma does her best to kill
But it stays and stays

[SUE]

I feel your pain. My nemesis is Japanese knotweed. if anyone has a good nonchemical solution, I'd love to hear it. I've had really thick black construction plastic over the patch for 3 years now, and the damn stuff pokes through it and around it. We spend far too much time pulling it up.

[Roxie]

After the big one,
horsetails and cockroaches will
be all that survive.

I may be back later with a better haiku. This doesn't really send me.

[jodi]

Oh my gosh Sue! I love Japanese knotweed! And planted some in my backyard on purpose. LOVE it. But then, I also sort of don't mind those horsetail things (although I might feel differently were they in my garden). The thing I despise the most is grass, or, as a friend of mine calls it, "eff-you" (short for fescue). My backyard would look so much less like a junkyard right now if there wasn't so much grass.

[CindyCindy]

Horsetail? We don't have that (thank the heaven's above). We have a dewberry vine that is hideous. It has been here for 40 years and I cannot kill it to save my life. It sends out shoots and I find it everywhere. That and elephant grass, plus honeysuckle, kudzu (now emerging)and tree of heaven (misnomer). Every single one of these has to be pulled to eradicate. Not one will die from hot water, vinegar or even Round-Up. Oh, and the poison ivy is becoming rather virulent, too. I LOVE gardening.

[chris]

Oh, ugh, I feel your pain -- in my garden it is Nutsedge and Bermudagrass that are my nemesises (nemesi?) . . . I too have almost resorted to the RoundUp, but I'm resisting that as hard as I can.

Love, love, LOVE the garden posts, Norma! :D

[Sarah]

I have those little buggers all over in my gardens too. Death to the horsetails!

[Miranda]

Ahh, Norma dearest,
let not their bilious green
drive you to madness!

Prehistoric pests
meet their match in gardener
with matches and napalm.

The only thing worse? Forgetting where you planted the horseradish and then rototilling over it the next spring. Every molecule sprouts a new plant.

[KittyMommy]

Dude, how can you go wrong combining haiku and the f-bomb?? Mucho kudos! Though the Hank haiku (Hanku?) tickled me, too.

[Julie]

I know that feeling. We have this vine in our back beds that spreads like wildflower, choking everything, and is impossible to kill. It nearly choked one of my pine trees to death last year because I didn't notice a few tendrils that snaked up the back of the trunk! And did I mention that this weed secretes a nasty milky goo when you break a stem -- and that it gives me hives! Grrrrr. . .

[Cookie]

I was going to suggest vinegar and salt, but I think Angie's husband may have the answer. That or gas and a lighter.

Don't let the weeds win, Norma!

[JudithNYC]

Ugh, so that's what they are. I always wondered why people down the street had such ugly plants in their back yard. Good luck eradicating them, Norma.

[JudithNYC]

Ugh, so that's what they are. I always wondered why people down the street had such ugly plants in their back yard. Good luck eradicating them, Norma.

[Cathy-Cate]

Once again, here's the haiku you almost wrote but didn't know it:

Imperturbable
Hank is no help with horsetails.
Lazy gnome bastard.

It's my (self-appointed) job to find the hidden haiku. Like "Where's Waldo?"

Be back later with something original, back to work for me now.

[Lucia]

My husband, who is male,
Gives his all-purpose advice:
Use a flamethrower.

[Cathy-Cate]

Horsetail I don't know.
My weeds are different weeds.
It sounds obnoxious.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Horsetail won't kill you
-- in fact, it's a spring tonic --
just drives you insane.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hank seems unhelpful.
But what's that in his left hand?
Flamethrower? Maybe!

[Beth]

I bet even I could grow some of that!!!

[Carol]

Lazy gnome bastard
Much time spent plastered
Now the horsetail will grow
And kill the Norma we love and know

[Laurie]

You made me laugh even though I know the damn weed sucks.

Your Haiku people are priceless.

[ingrid]

Some time ago I read that horsetails do not like fertilizer -
perhaps you can kill them with "kindness", it's worth a try.
But you have to have patience, it takes several years
of pampering/fertilizing before they have had enough!
Whatever you do, do not try to pull them out,
this is a big No No since they love that treatment.
GOOD LUCK!