Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
Life, Culture and Politics from BrisVegas
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The nice thing about living in South Australia is that, this weekend, we have a lazy Sunday followed by a lazy Monday.
There’s potentially excellent goulash bubbling away on the stove-top, with a bowl of sourdough for dumplings on the bench. I’m debating whether to have braised cabbage on the side, or just steam it with caraway seeds sprinkled through it.
bicycle ride, chat, lunch, gardening; perfect.
Just got back from the Gold coast where I visited the very excellent Mount Tamborine brewery. The “Black cockatoo” dark lager was superb!
Bought “Against the grain” (the Redgum anthology) to listen to in the car on the way home to Gladstone. To my amusement, there was a song on the CD written about my little home town – “Gladstone pier”. It was playing as I drove over the Gateway bridge. Gawd! What a depressing song. I never realised our lives were so bad up here. It made me feel like driving straight throught he barrier and over the edge.
Mind you, it’s probably a fair enough description of Gladstone life during the 70′s boom when thousands of people lived in fibro shacks and even tents along creeks and mudflat edges because the accomodation for such an influx was all but non-existant.
Apart from that, the weekend was good.
I’m trying to work out what to do with about a freaking bushel of coriander that’s just starting to bolt and needs to make way for the tomatoes.
Also, researching broad bean pollination to try and diagnose what’s with the little buggers. They’re about 5ft tall now, and been flowering gangbusters for 6 weeks, but only about 10% of them set fruit. Turns out I’ve got ants “robbing” the nectar from the base of the flowers, and then the lazy bees use the hole too and nobody does any pollinating.
Don’t they want to be the unwitting third party in a reproductive act? What’s not to like?
@Ambigulous – “bicycle ride, chat, lunch, gardening; perfect”
SNAP!
Well, there was wine drinking with the chatting and lunching
Just the other day LP had a discussion on the German elections, yet there’s nothing on the Greek elections.
Given lots of Australians have Greek heritage, why the emphasis on the Teutonic and the neglect of the Hellenic? It’s doubly perplexing when you consider that George Papandreaou is an important figure on the social democratic Left (he’s the president of the Socialist International) and he’s very likely to win.
For a seventies vintage Fibro house,would probably mean an increase in my status as a human person in the sub set of human persons Australia.Seeing the framework of a seventies vintage fibro would be easily worked anew upon and adding other materials besides fibro as it was,just sounds like another housing oppurtunity I am missing out on.Raining slightly here,drizzle form,spent some time reading New Dawning Magazine Special Edition on matters psychic etc. Some well written pieces in it two are quite well written as introductions, Athanasius Kircher’s Theatre of Marvels written by Joscelyn Godwin PH.D. And Padre Pio Paranormal Man by Michael Grosso PH.D. And a story about the psychics who predicted Fatima,which I will read more thoroughly,because of how the phenomena is being treated here.The weekend has dragged on to this time Savings and all.What a crazy Government attempt at corellated payments with Daylight Saving being introduced.Can’t us fully grown adults,as pensioners, be left alone to our miserable existences without Savings giving us crop hair cuts that aren’t savings!?
Helped to fire my friends Anagama kiln over the weekend. 3 tons of timber up the chimney, feeding a roaring raging fire for 3 days and knights, intermittent side stoking, scorching heat chatting with old friends sleeping in cool mountain air listening to the exotic noises of night in the rainforest.
Tired and content.
FDB, my sister just grabbed all my surplus coriander to make coriander pesto, do you want me to ask her for the recipe? I used to make it, but can’t remember what the heck I put in it…I think the pinenuts of basil pesto are replaced with walnuts, or is it macadamias?
I must be tired, so good knight then!
Darin
good on youse!
FDB: throw some Thai green curry paste in with the coriander, marinade some chicken kebabs, grill to your liking, and Bhumibol’s your uncle.
Wielded the glyphosate in the garden today. What evil things does the stuff do to the environment?
Saturday handicap race sucked, but first summer crit of the season went OK.
Robert, glyphsate is a “knock-down” with no residual in the soil. If you are killing something that is green & growing, then it is effective, alas nowhere near as fast acting as 24-D, and as soon as it rains whatever you were killing will shoot again (if nothing else from seeds, or if you didn’t apply enough to properly kill the plant)
Bang goes your “organic” certification – for a while – but I wouldn’t worry too much about that, as that process hasn’t yet matured to the point where it has a realistic meaning. (ie: “Organic” certification is lapped up by the rubes when printed on retail packaging, but is sort of like the requirement for a boat licence to fly a hang glider, the qualification tests aren’t necessarily relevant, but “something” should be seen to be being done)
Slightly disagree, SATP. I think there is a fine salt residual of some kind in the soil, but so close to nothing it doesn’t matter. In these parts if you get a kill you’ll have bare ground for about 3 months and then something will grow, eventually like the glyphosate has never been.
Congratulations To Central District in their SANFL Grand Final win over Sturt today. More than 35,000 were at Footy Park for what was a good spectacle-in the first half. Delta Goodrem’s brother Trent won the Jack Oatey Medal for best on ground and her and that boy-band fella of hers were in attendance. Supposedly she went up to Central’s clubrooms at Elizabeth to celebrate with the team afterwards, sans bullet proof vest & security detail?
Anyway congrats to Centrals finishing the decade playing in their 10th consecutive GF for 8 Premierships.
I’ve been shaking my head at this week’s antics of the LNP in Qld. Now that Dutton has refused to stand for re-election in Dickson because he would have to pick up a margin of 1 point something percent, Turnbull has demanded that the LNP find him a safe seat.
Surely if Dutton is such a hard worker, he could easily win by demonising the state government and refugees and running the usual Liberal scare campaign. 1 point something percent is not unwinnable in anyone’s language.
I know, I know, I wasn’t supposed to talk about politics. Sorry.
SATP, thanks for that.
I don’t bother with organic agriculture myself; I’ve not seen any evidence to suggest any health benefits, and the environmental argument in general is not exactly compelling either (though there is a serious problem with the nitrogen cycle that needs to be fixed in the long term, as I understand it).
But specific chemicals might still be problematic.
Quiet weekend. Wrote a bit more of ch. 3 of my book, spent some time taking notes from Thomas J. Fleming’s book on Bunker Hill. Had a friend visit on saturday afternoon. We talked about history (what ewlse?) and he had a look at getting my spell check operating on Office Works, think I know how to do it now.
Sunday more note-taking from book on Bunker Hill. Thinking about what more I have to do about ch 3, how to telescope last part of Battle of Lexington Concord, so it doesn’t become just a narrative of a boring sequence of ambushes – and I need to cut the words down, over 7000 already, but I’ll wait till I finish the chapter for that. Also need to personalise Grose’s experiences in this sequence more.
(Youse have no idea what a help writing that down was.)
The curtains are fading, the clock is fast, all the TV programmes are on at the wrong time, I wake up later in the mornings, the world’s gone mad.
And the Socialists have won the Greek elections.
I know it’s a bit of money, but maybe you could get a hard disk recorder for your TV, preferably one with a twin tuner.
Makes TV-watching a breeze.
Ta for the coriander tips – I’ve found a decent looking pesto recipe and one for a hot green chilli and coriander chutney. That’ll do the job I think.
There’s so freaking much there’s no way I’d be able to freeze it all, so these methods that bring the volume down are just the ticket.
While I’m chucking stuff out there, does anyone know of a use for the full size plant that grows up when you let cress (salad or mustard cress) grow up? It’s out with the old, in with the new time out back but I don’t want to waste stuff.
Paul B
So the Papandreou family has wrested the Greek leadership from the Karamanlis family
I remember an old Papandreou from the 1960s, before the Colonel’s Coup. Then his son Andreas was elected in the early 80s I think, after several attempts…
Later there were Karamanlius boys in power….
Athenian Democracy was ever imperfect.
FDB, coriander is also delicious as a salad veg with cold rice noodles (the vermicelli kind, not the thick kind), red capsicum, cucumber, mushrooms and whatever else you might like to toss in. Dress with some white vinegar (Japanese if you have it otherwise Skipping Girl is fine) mixed with some fish sauce and chilli paste.
Add peanuts, thinly sliced roast beef, etc. ad lib if you have em.
Robert M@17
I buy organic because
a) Even though the consequences of chemical contrivance in food production are sometimes difficult to quantify in personal health terms, unless there is a clear benefit, why take the risk
b) Chemical run off has impications for the ecosystem that are undesirable for others
c) Organic food tends to taste better
d) Organic food doesn’t support large chemical companies and their at times anti-social practices
e) Organic food tends to be more local and have fewer carbon miles
I accept that others may attach insufficient value to these attributes to make the extra cost worthwhile.
Robert, I’ll defer to Brian @ 14. I should have said that glyphosate has no long term residual.
That said, on a place I worked in the brigalow country I have at times poured 24-D (knockdown) and Atrazine (residual) onto a patch of soil to eliminate a couple of parthenium weed. The aim was to sterilise that patch, about the size of a kitchen. Parthenium is so vile that any rural landholder who is “clean” will go to tremendous lengths to remain clean. Sterlising for eons into the future is nothing compared to the loss of becoming infested.
3 years later there was waist deep buffel grass all around, and a claypan of bare dirt where I had sprayed.
10 years later there was vigorous verdant buffel everywhere, and no trace whatsoever of the “sterilised” patch.
And that was from an application of one of the strongest residual effect chemicals commercially available, applied so heavily the soil surface turned duck egg blue, about the tint of a swimming pool bottom.
Thus I expect your isolated glyphosate application to have no residual effect, even if you spilled a Forty-Four of the stuff on the one spot.
I don’t think even the manufacturers of Glyphosate claim it to be non-residual these days. And yeah, it’s a salt, and in soil with a high organic component it will break done relatively quickly, if you are gardening in sandy soils you need to be careful with any chemical you use.
Also, many synthesised herbicides are less toxic to your soil than ‘organic’ solutions. I’ve heard of a few that are various versions of salt, vinegar, pine oil, solarisation..er…boiling water?…all fine if you want to actually sterilise your soil and don’t give a hoot about the soil-biology, but highly dubious if you ask me.
Glyphosate is one of those jack of all trades, master of none herbicides, it’s actually not that great at doing a proper job on some weeds, particularly geophytic weeds.
SATP, stuff like that is the reason that farmers now have to jump through hoops to access effective chemicals. No residual effect after only 10 years, eh? FFS, ever worried about movement through the soil and the water table, not to mention the erosion from having bare-ground exposed for so long? what an absolutely idiotic thing to do.
On Friday I rode my sepeda motor (more than a scooter, less than a motorbike) from Yogyakarta to Salatiga for the second of what will be three consecutive weekends. This weekend the Festival Mata Air is being held at a place called Senjoyo, which is a natural spring providing water to Salatiga (although this is a vexed issue).
I rode there and back via a place called Ketap Pass. The road passes through the mountains, just west of the volcano Mt Merapi. On a clear day, the view is quite spectacular.
Unfortunately neither Friday nor Sunday evenings were clear. The mountains were enveloped in cloud, with visibility reduced to around 20-30 metres. As I was riding at around 5pm, the sun was going down and the headlights of oncoming traffic emerged from the fog just in time to avoid them. Potholes conspired to send me headlong over the edge of the mountain, and a lack of those very handy little reflectors so prevalent on Australian roads meant that discerning the winding path ahead became a task best attempted at 20-30km/h.
Of course, locals who know the road intimately were zipping past me without a care, or a helmet.
Last weekend was spent participating in a site clean-up under the auspices of the ‘Clean-up the World’ campaign. This weekend was building decorations, signs and such for the site. I also managed to spend an afternoon by a large lake near Salatiga, watching people fishing and mucking about with boats.
Having braved the mountain pass to return (this time behind the car of a friend, allowing somewhat greater certainty), we attended a poetry performance at a place called Eloprogo near Borobudur. I’m not quite sure what it was all about, other than that there seemed to be a river that was killing all the animals that drank from it. That or causing hallucinations. Possibly both.
Glyphosate leaves a (salt) residue which is toxic to frogs – there is a “frog safe” version now available, if you wish to use it near waterways, or “froggy” areas.
One for the organic food eaters. Hope you don’t drink any coffee with all that wholesome goodness.
“Organic coffee may be a natural, bean-based, pesticide-free beverage. But did you know that all coffee is filled with chemicals?
Scientists have identified 1,000 different chemicals in a cup of coffee. But how many of the 1,000 chemicals have been tested in animal cancer studies? Only 22–leaving 978 compounds in your morning java about which we know very little. And of those 22 that were tested, were any found to be carcinogens, or cancer-causing compounds? Seventeen of the 22 are, in fact, carcinogens.
Carcinogens are found in many foods–as are offsetting cancer-fighting chemicals–but in small quantities. If we wanted to avoid all carcinogens, we’d have to stop eating altogether. But there are 10 milligrams (mg) of known carcinogens in a single cup of coffee. To put that into perspective, 10 mg is probably more than all the synthetic pesticide residues you could get from eating non-organic food for an entire year. In one cup.”
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FKA/is_9_65/ai_106647165/
.
There are some positives to coffee consumption but how to balance out these concerns makes me wonder why we often get worked up about what we eat.
I mean I must have at least 500 cups of coffee a year so I’m consuming 500 years worth of carcingens from all other food sources if I make no effort to avoid standard foods?
And what happens to all these chemicals once my liver or kidneys have tried to remove or detoxify them ? Am I and all other coffee drinkers really just acting as mobile carcinogen spreaders? The public ( sewage )or private ( septic) systems may not be eliminating these residues in any meaningful way .
Anyhoo the kettle has boiled and I need a cup!
Rewi, that looks like a fascinating ride.
How steep is the road?
Mt Merapi? Borobodur? Lucky you.
FB @ 25. With respect FB you probably have an area of expertise, but to make statements such as “What an absolutely idiotic thing to do” about matters where your expertise doesn’t even extend to the most basic layman level, is tending toward hubris.
The boss in that job had many characteristics, idiocy was not one of them. If you know a better method of stopping an outbreak of Parthenium, please put it forward.
My only experiences with the long term effect of Atrazine are that bit of spot spraying. I’m afraid that an ejaculation from you of “FFS” does not amount to a very convincing argument, especially when it is not consistent with any observed outcomes. I can’t do anything but write what I observed. This is known elsewhere as “experience”.
This is what you call, “Spot Spraying” @24 “….applied so heavily the soil surface turned duck egg blue, about the tint of a swimming pool bottom.” Or were you just gilding the lily a wee bit?
You say: “Thus I expect your isolated glyphosate application to have no residual effect, even if you spilled a Forty-Four of the stuff on the one spot.” And you assert ‘hubris’ on my part?
The practice is idiocy and anyone who has even a most basic understanding of the way atrazine moves in the landscape will know so. Go do some research, there are ways to control even the most pernicious weeds [including Parthenium] without resorting to the kind of practice that sterilises the soil for 10 years.
Apropos idiotic and herbicide, a mate of mine received from his farming mate a bottle of Paraquat to improve his hit with Glysophate. He treated the new chemical with the same cavalier attitude as Glysophate and got such a severe dose he had to spend nearly a week in hospital.
Please folks note – herbicides have different modes of action, thus some have little toxicity and some are highly toxic to humans. Further, while some have very little toxicity to humans they may still be highly toxic to amphibians, fish and invertebrates.
A little know fact about Glysophate (round up) is, that as a systemic agent it requires good sap flow for good action. From memory particularely phloem flow, as required for flowering and fruiting. In other words, if the plant is not active, eg. hibernating or not growing due to lack of water or immature the effectiveness of Glysophate is extremely reduced.
Robert,
some of the slopes are pretty steep, requiring 1st gear. The corners get pretty wild as well, particularly when you’ve got other bikes zipping by on both sides of the road in both directions. Add in trucks and it makes for a challenging experience.
Ambigulous,
Lucky me indeed! It’s been great being able to take advantage of an opportunity to do volunteer work through AVI to see a bit of Indonesia from the back of a sepeda motor.
Ta Helen. Those are the usual uses I grow coriander for – the problem I have is a crazy overabundance, so the normal appetites of two adult coriander lovers aren’t getting through it.
If only the stuff didn’t bolt the way it did… There’s some “no-bolt coriander” seedlings on sale at Bunnings but I was in a hurry last time and didn’t grab any. will try soon and report!
I’ve got a more sensible rotation going now – only about 8-12 plants go in at a time, with the next lot of seeds planted when the last are coming into cropability. This current situation’s the legacy of my overkill 3 months ago – turns out 20 plants in decent soil, in a 3-generation rotation, is going a bit nuts unless you run a grocer’s.
Bolting’s a varietal thing, and not helped by lots of the coriander seed from lazy merchants buying the cheapest they can find. Unsurprisingly, this will be seed from varieties that produce abundant seed quickly!
My policy now, after getting wildly variable results in the same season and soil from different seeds, is to get my own strain going. In late summer, I just let the last healthy plant to bolt go all the way to seed and use that.
But it’s also time of year related, and ain’t much you can do about that.
Yes, to the time of year thing, FDB. I bought the slow-bolt seeds from ..er…Eden Seeds, I think. And they don’t seem to be all that different, though I think next year I’ll plant two patches with different seeds and see how they compare.
I’m also going to try planting some right against a northern fence-line which is about the coolest/shadiest part of my garden, I might get a few more weeks out of it there I think.
I wish we had a regular gardening thread here. We’re growing coriander and cumin specifically for seed this year. I can’t seem to grow it successfully for the leaf. Either it sits there sullenly doing nothing or else it flowers much too fast.
My broad beans haven’t produced many beans, either, but that’s fine with me because I hate broad beans. I put them in mainly for the benefit of the soil.
Speaking of poisons. Does anyone know how to get rid of oxalis? It’s in amongst a perennial border so I don’t want to poison my other plants. Seeing it being grown in window boxes in Amsterdam almost ruined my trip.
Hey why not? We both have the keys to the Larvyprod… What’ll we call it? Eats roots and leaves? I think that’s been done…
Getting rid of Oxalis: down on knees on Sunday with interesting stuff on RN, dog/cats sniffing around and birds hopping. Beats spraying poison any time.
Larvyprod …. could be a regular on the weekends.
There are quite a few different Oxalis, some are easier to hand weed then others.
What to do depends on which Oxalis species, size of infestation as well as ecological situation, such as soil condition, drainage, predominant species and cultivation.
Generally I find Oxalis in hungry or badly drained soil. It becomes a problem when it is able to out compete the preferably grown plant species. So check drainage, give that soil a bit of a boost and consider replanting with an appropriate more vigorous plant.
The herbicides that are most effective on oxalis are generally as low, or lower in toxicity than glyphosate, though some have a more residual effect in the soil and require the addition of surfactants, so they shouldn’t be used around waterways. But I’m not sure that it would be of any help to you, it’s hard to buy these particular herbicides in amounts and forms that are suitable for home use.
I use a particular herbicide to get rid of oxalis and other geophytic plants in native grasslands [where cultivation and competition strategies aren't practical] and they are very effective, but I’m not sure whether you would want to go to the expense, and the trouble for a garden situation.
Worked Saturday and Sunday.
Tuesday turned out to be my Lazy Sunday instead.
Abandoned Optus a couple of weeks ago, so now my Internetting is restricted to checking emails on the batphone. Any suggestions as to a new and reasonably decent ISP?
Got a big cheque from the Tax Office, which unfortunately will disappear to pay the bills.
Finally learnt to cook an edible Okonomiyaki.
Lunching with another beautiful Japanese teacher tomorrow…
furious balancing, I’d be awfully interested in what you use to control oxalis. I mow a few lawns and work on a few acreages. We’ve found the “weed and feed” mix of commonly available bindi and clover spray more effective than the straight bindi and clover.
I use a commercial mix of bindi and clover, available from the local produce store, at something like double the recommended strength, with a bit of soluble fertilizer and a squirt of detergent for better wetting thrown in. That takes out a lot of weeds the normal mix won’t touch, but falls short of knocking the grass. Would that stuff up the environment excessively?
I’ve also noticed that the weedicide is more effective on oxalis and clover immediately after mowing. The poison seems to get down into the rhizomes better.
Some weeds are pretty much always around, but it is remarkable that each season seems to see one or two different weeds flourish all over the place on different properties. Then next year it will virtually disappear and be replaced by a new candidate. Oxalis, for example, was bad a few years ago, but better growing conditions last year suppressed it somewhat.
Not quite sure where else to put this, but this ABC story caught my eye:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/07/2707180.htm
Especially this quote:
“[But] there is no centre for internet. That’s the reason it’s a very democratic space. I believe cyberspace is more democratic than reality.”
Isn’t cyberspace part of reality?
I feel an existentialist threat the scale of that faced by Pakistan coming on…
“Prodding Larvae” might be a good name for a regular gardening thread!
Brian, the herbicide I use on oxalis in grasslands is a chemical that is used on broadleaf weeds in cereal crops. The active constituent is metsulfuron-methyl [600g/kg]. The problem with this herbicide is that it is in granular form and highly concentrated, so even buying the smallest amount available will last you eons with small-scale use. Perhaps you know a farmer who might have some? I could probably send some to you in a measured amount to try, but sending white powder in the mail could be dodgy!!
You need to measure VERY small amounts. For oxalis and other geophytic plants I use 0.5 gram in 15 litres, so that is 0.03 grams/litre. I use a chemists microscale to weigh it because misuse/overuse in the landscape is very problematic. Like I said, it’s not very toxic to people at all, even at the concentrations its sold at, the LD50 is about the same as glyphosate, but it is quite residual, but then so are most chemicals, as you’ve already observed with glyphosate. I use 2ml/litre of Spreadwet as a wetting agent.
Most chemicals move through the soil and water to some extent, repeated uses and higher than recommended rates will eventually have the potential to make their way into drainage lines etc. There is a growing body of research that suggests that a lot of those mysterious ‘dieback’ type diseases, may be attributable to chemical residues building up in soils. I’m comfortable using the herbicide the way I do, because its efficacy means that its rare that I am respraying areas multiple times, plus we use a very low rate. we always work in areas where there is immediate competition from native grasses, and they recolonise quickly.
I’m not entirely sure why it is so effective on the geophytes, it is used on other broadleaf weeds with good results, but it has been the one we have used on anything that has a bulb or a tuberous type roots system, and in the situations where we use it, it’s become a highly useful tool.
The thing you need to know is that it is incredibly slow acting, and sometimes it seems like it’s not doing anything at all – DO NOT RESPRAY. For whatever reason the slower it is to act in the year it is sprayed, the better the kill rate that is evident in the following year. And with large rooted plants like the Asparagus weeds ie: Bridal Creeper, it is better to wait two years. This is not great news for domestic situations where people like to see immediate results, but for oxalis, it’s worth the wait.
The best time to spray is just before flowering, as with all herbicides timing of the spraying is really important. We’ve never mown before treating these types of weeds, given labour [walking over a site] is the big part of the cost of our work, we try to choose a method that reduces the number of processes involved.
Do you know what the active ingredient is in the weedicide you use? I’ve seen that Bindi product at the garden store but not looked at it. If you need to use if at off-label rates, its probably better to pursue a different chemical, than to keep persisting at higher and higher rates, least you create some kind of herbicide resistant mutant weed! Some people get a bit impatient and think a heribicide isn’t working and will respray it at a stronger rate – and make matters worse – all it does is burn off the plant, and stops the processes necessary to move the chemical through the plant.
I don’t really have too many probs with clovers in my work etc, but the metsulfuron-methyl seemed to be quite effective on young medic, even at the low rate. I also use it on plantain and it’s very effective on that, likewise pattersons curse. And like I said the geophytes: romulea, sparaxis, freesia, watsonia, bridal creeper, cape tulip – all of those will be dealt with at that very low rate. Of course if you have native geophytes around like, lilies and orchids you will need to be extremely careful, given the emphasis of my work is on conserving natives, we don’t use metuslfuron-methyl near them at all.
BTW: You can get useful information on herbicides including the labels and medical safety data sheets from this site [this link is to the page with the metsulfuron-methyl products listed]: http://www.pestgenie.com.au/default.asp?V_DOC_ID=872
here’s some info on metsulfuron-methyl residues: http://www.regional.org.au/au/asa/2001/6/c/noy.htm
Sorry to blah on so much, I hate giving a rec for herbicides without covering some of the important stuff. If you have any more questions, let me know.
oh the humble broad bean!
it signals the start of spring for real around our place. the kids harvest and shell a bunch, we chop up the pancetta and the onion, let it brew for a while in a heavy pan, and when nicely stewed, serve on toasted crusty bread. one of the great roman inventions.
laura, you’d be welcome any time to see if your mind might be changed.
having said all that, we have no beans yet either. conspiracy brewing?
Glyphosate builds tolerance, so should best be used for one-offs, while implementing a more long-term strategy. I’m not keen on prolonged use. And frogs and fish don’t like it, so keep it away from water.
In the past, for micro jobs I’ve built a small disposable spray hood with an old 2 l milk carton to use with a hand spray to get stuff like kikuyu growing through native grasses. With good chemical gloves it’s cheap and works a treat.
Brian, after mowing works because of a combination of absorbtion plus the subsequent growth spurt. Some liquid nitrogenous fertiliser can do the trick also for stubborn weeds when they are sprayed. The faster they grow, the faster they cark it.
Soursob oxalis (the succulent yellow flowered one) can be sprayed on early emergence but not later after it’s set new tubers. That’s mainly for bushland control. For mechanical methods in the garden I’ve generally got these with a hand weeder inserted deeply to get the basal tuber (they’re set at two levels). A garden fork in clay. It’s best to get them early that way too. A couple of years and then you’re only pulling out the occasional one. If you wait until spring, they’ve set bulblets everywhere.
Ornamental oxalis need to be pulled carefully because of the many small bulblets they set. One of the few weeds I don’t compost. Chooks or bin.
fb, the broadleaf chemical I use has two active ingredients – 340g/L MCPA and 80 g/L Dicamba marketed as Kamba which you can buy in 5L pots. I’d been using it at 4ml per litre of water in a spray. I have a Hardi backpack for which you can buy fan nozzles of various guages. I usually use an 18 guage, which means you can cover the ground quite quickly.
At the rate cited above that’s more than double the concentration of sprays with the same ingredients supermarkets sell as “bindi and clover” spray, which, ironically in the concentrations recommended kill quite a few weeds but have trouble with bindi and clover. I think the low concentrations must be to save their arses in making the stuff very safe.
A guy I work for applied Kamba at 7ml per litre at which concentration it knocked over Scotch thistles and ordinary thistles, which it won’t touch at 4ml/L. But even at that level the oxalis often just persists with a smaller leaf. If you hit it again in a few weeks time you can usually clean it up. But my problem is that I have limited hours, one day a week and they determine priorities, so I can’t always tackle things in the way I’d like.
BTW hereabouts oxalis is almost always flowering.
The metsulfuron-methyl story sounds like a chemical you can get here for nut grass, which knocks it over (and anything else it touches) in one application, including the underground nut. But you can only buy it in high concentration in quantities worth hundreds of dollars. It’s intended for turf farmers (I wish they’d use the rotten stuff) rather than home gardeners. Anyway I’ll have a look in the produce store where they have some agricultural chemicals.
fb, at the site you recommended the stuff I use is KAMBA M. It doesn’t list oxalis as one of the many weeds it treats.
Roger, you’re a mine of information
For a hand spray hood I bought one of those cheapo 500ml plastic hand spray things, threw away the spray mechanism and cut the bottom out, making a nice handy cone. The Hardi spray actually has a hood fitting, but only with a cone spray nozzle, which is good for spot weeding.
The problem with Hardi is that they don’t deal directly with the public anymore and the agent they recommended had never heard of them. I’ll have to try again next time I need a new washer.
FB # 32. You seem challenged by terminology. Are you unaware of the difference between spot spraying & broadacre spraying? I was not gilding the lily, atrazine is very blue, it isn’t difficult to turn anything it touches into a lovely duck egg blue.
“Idiocy” is in my Oxford as “A mental condition of utter foolishness”. This does not describe the carefully thought out response of a self-made man to something that has the power to ruin him.
It does however aptly describe your response to my posted comment.
You talk as if my boss’ tactic was to broadacre apply chemical. A spot spraying of ANYTHING, somewhere in 20,000 acres, in a district with a similar record, is quite difficult to find again, never mind it “moving through the soil” to a “water table”. (Good water and good soil don’t often go together, there isn’t water anywhere near that country)
As you would have noted had you read my posted comment, even though the aim was to sterilize that patch, 10 years later, far from being sterilised (as you seem to think it was) there was no sign the spot had ever been sprayed.
The boss’ actions were based on fear (very understandable) and experience. He was not aiming for a 99% Paul Keating style “acceptable risk”, he was aiming for success.
It was not an intellectual exercise for him, but survival. Something not often able to be grasped by those whose pay is guaranteed regardless of their performance.
Steve, you’re right you said it was sterile for 3 years, and the effect was not obvious after 10, so the soil was sterilised for somewhere between 3 and 10 years – it needn’t have been sterilised for 3 years either. Oh, and it’s good to see you’re now posting the qualifiers that you should have posted initially when describing a very cavalier approach to herbicide use – you know, way back when you offered the suggestion that a 44 gallon drum of roundup dumped in one place would have no residual effect. By the way my job is to get rid of weeds in a manner that ensures they never come back and I’m good at it, I’m not sure what you are trying to convey with some of your snark, but I’ll leave you to it. I’m not unsympathetic to the dilemma facing your employer, but your description of it did him and other farmers no favours at all.
Brian, your setup sounds great. I would guess that what you are calling nutgrass is a Romulea sp, and metsulfuron methyl is very effective on that so your’e right that is probably what the farmers are using – Romulea is toxic to stock.
The reason we try and get oxalis before it flowers is that at flowering it produces bulbils that detach from the main plant and so the herbicide does not translocate to them and you will have small plants that need retreating the following year. So, I just try to get the timing right to reduce the time and chemical required, but if you have non-stop flowering I think you will have to spray the following year to get those plants growing from the bulbils.
When I bought it, the cheapest version [ie: generic, not Dupont] was a product called Esteem [it's the same as ALLY if you want to take a look at the other target weeds and rates needed on the pestgenie site]. If you would like to try it and can’t find someone else who can give you a little bit, I can send you some in measured amounts, it’s really not a product you use a lot of, and like I said it’s effective so unless I take on a gazillion grasslands, I’m not going to use the amount I have. From memory it was about 80$.
I was talking to some landscapers about a month ago and I think Kamba must have been what they were using, though they couldn’t remember the name. I looked at the label and it’s weird that it mentions it’s effective on native [creeping] oxalis but not the introduced versions, I might investigate what that’s about.
Brian, forgot to say feel free to drop me an email if you want to, I assume since you are contributor here, you can see my email address [??].