Attacking Perennial Weeds in Fall: Find Them, Dig Them, Starve Them - Ep 325

[00:00:00] Every fall there comes a day when the tomato plants come out of the field and I can finally see the ground again. And in one particular field, all I see is Johnson grass. The tops are already flopping over and turning tan from the cold nights and it would be easy to look at that and think, well, the season's over and so is that weed for this year. Except it isn't over for the Johnson grass. Underneath that field is a network of thick white rhizomes packed with sugar the plant spent all summer making.

[00:00:29] And every cool night this month, it's sending a little more of that sugar down to carry it through the winter and launch it again in the spring. Perennial weeds live in their roots. The leaves are just the solar panels. When you chop off a bindweed vine, the plant barely notices because the real plant is underground and it's got a full savings account full of energy.

[00:00:51] You've probably heard that fall is the best time to kill perennial weeds because the plants are pulling sugar down into their roots. That's true and it's the reason that fall is the go-to season for herbicides.

[00:01:03] Now, I don't spray in my garden and I know a lot of you don't either. So if you garden that way too, fall gives you something just as valuable. It's the season to find these weeds while they're easy to see, dig the ones that you can dig while the soil is soft and moist, cover the ones that you can't, and make a plan to hit them next spring at the exact moment that their roots are weakest.

[00:01:25] Fall is where you plan the attack. Spring is where you win it. Welcome back to Just Grow Something. I'm Karin Velez, market farmer and horticulturist and your friend in the garden. The beds are emptying out for a lot of us right now and that bare ground is the best look that you will get all year at the weeds that keep coming back. First, we're going to talk about why perennial weeds are so hard to get rid of and what changes inside the plant in the fall.

[00:01:52] And then I'll walk you through the popular fixes that don't hold up, like vinegar sprays. And then I'll give you a fall and winter game plan with adjustments for frozen, moderate, and mild winters. And then we'll go weed by weed from bindweed and candida thistle to nutsedge and poison hemlock. Let's dig in.

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[00:03:05] You can support the show, which I greatly appreciate, and get a free gift by going to larryscoffee.com slash just grow. And of course, I will leave that link in the show notes. So a few years ago, I did an episode on identifying and controlling persistent weeds. And I told you about the afternoon that I spent pulling Johnson grass from between my tomatoes and my pole beans. I also told you about the years that I spent fighting bindweed, field bindweed,

[00:03:35] and how an old timer once told me that my Johnson grass was shattercane. Okay, shattercane is an annual that looks a lot like it. And if I had managed it like an annual, I wouldn't have gotten anywhere. The giveaway was the rhizomes. When I pulled it, there were those thick underground stems running sideways through the soil that sort of look like crab legs. And an annual doesn't make those. That episode covered the basics like mulching and blocking light and pulling and mowing.

[00:04:05] Today, I want to go deeper on the perennials specifically and on what fall changes. Because timing matters just as much with these weeds as almost anything else that we do in the garden. Let's start with what you're up against. Field bindweed roots can grow 20 feet into the ground. And its seed can stay alive in the soil for up to 60 years. Six zero, okay?

[00:04:32] About 70% of the root mass sits in the top two feet of the soil, which is good news for us. But those deep roots are why you never seem to get it all. Fragments of root as short as two inches can grow into new plants. And one plant can spread more than 10 feet outward in a single growing season, okay? Canada thistle is just as stubborn. Its horizontal roots can run 15 feet or more. And its vertical roots can go 6 to 15 feet deep.

[00:05:03] A piece of root a quarter of an inch long and an eighth of an inch thick has enough stored energy to make a whole new plant. And those little pieces can survive at least 100 days without any leaves to feed them. So the common thread with all of these weeds is the storage organ. It might be a creeping root, a rhizome, a tuber, or a big fat taproot. That is where the plant keeps its savings, okay?

[00:05:32] And as long as the savings hold out, it'll keep sending up new shoots no matter how many times you knock it down. Through the spring and the summer, the sugars that a perennial makes in its leaves mostly stay up top, feeding new growth. As the days shorten and the nights cool, the plant switches gears and starts moving those carbohydrates down into its roots for winter storage. That is the reason that lawn and pasture guides push fall herbicide applications.

[00:05:59] Whatever lands on the leaves gets carried down into the roots along with the sugar. That same sugar flow tells us something useful even if we never spray. Every leaf left standing in the fall is pumping energy into next year's roots. So fall regrowth that you leave alone is helping the weed.

[00:06:24] And fall regrowth you cut off or cover up is energy that never makes it into the bank. But fall is not the moment when the roots are the weakest. That moment comes in spring. A perennial weed burns through its stored reserves to push out new shoots. And its reserves bottom out at a predictable stage before the leaves start refilling them.

[00:06:49] For Canada thistle, that's when the shoots are about a foot tall and they start forming those flower buds. For field bindweed, it's when the vines are roughly a foot to two feet long with about four to six leaves. For johnson grass, it's 10 to 30 days after the shoots come up when they're about 6 to 12 inches tall. For dandelions, it's at their spring flowering. So in fall, you stop the deposits.

[00:07:17] In spring, you force the withdrawals. And you keep doing both until the account runs dry. Researchers who pulled together 100 studies on Canada thistle found that combining two or more methods beat relying on herbicide alone for long-term control. They also found that repeated mowing worked about as well as herbicide over the longer term in pastures and other perennial plantings.

[00:07:45] A similar review of bindweed research found that non-chemical and integrated approaches performed about as well as herbicides. So you don't need chemicals to win. You need more than one tool and you need a little bit of patience. So before we get to the plan, let's clear out some of the advice that wastes a lot of your time on a fall afternoon, okay? Vinegar sprays.

[00:08:13] So you've seen the recipe online with vinegar and salt and dish soap, and I'm pretty sure that we have talked about this before. Vinegar is a contact killer, okay? It burns the leaves that it touches, but it doesn't move down into the roots. When federal researchers tested vinegar on Canada thistle at a 5% solution, which is what your standard kitchen vinegar is,

[00:08:35] that burned down 100% of the roots weren't affected at all, and the shoots always grew back, okay? The stronger solutions of 10% to 20% did control certain young annual weeds, and that is what we can find in terms of like an agricultural-grade vinegar. But those strengths come with their own risks.

[00:09:00] Acetic acid above about 11% can burn your skin, and it can cause severe eye injuries. One extension agent tried that popular vinegar, Epsom salt, and dish soap mix on a stand of Canada thistle in a pasture. It burned down the thistle and the grass, and the next year, the thistle came back as strong as ever, and the grass didn't. That's the opposite of what you want.

[00:09:28] And as I said in that earlier episode, the salt in those recipes is bad news for any soil that you plan to grow anything in. The next myth is a thin layer of cardboard or mulch. Now, I love mulch. I'll talk your ear off about mulch. And back in previous episodes, we've gone through which mulches fit which jobs. Against annual weeds, a good layer of mulch is one of the best tools that you have.

[00:09:54] Against established perennials, loose mulch mostly hands them a really nice place to grow, okay? Canada thistle has enough stored energy to push through any amount of loose mulch. In fact, weed scientists reported seeing hedge bindweed come up through an 18-inch pile of bark mulch that was waiting to be spread. 18 inches, okay? And I have seen the bindweed come up through my raised beds.

[00:10:22] I've got my planter box direct beds out front, and those beds are 17 inches deep, and they are filled with soil. And I have had field bindweed come up from underneath all the way through to sprout out the top. Now, this isn't a reason not to use mulch because I will say it makes the perennial weeds that pop through much easier to spot, and it keeps the soil moist so we have better luck pulling the plant out like root and all.

[00:10:48] But mulch alone is not enough to stop perennial weeds. What does work is a tough, continuous barrier that blocks all of the light with the edges overlap so nothing can sneak through the seams. So black plastic, heavy landscape fabric, or overlapped cardboard can all work against field bindweed if no light gets through. And then you have to leave it there.

[00:11:14] Okay, bindweed can take more than three years under a light barrier before it dies. And complete death can take three to five years. Nutsedge is the exception to the plastic rule, though. It has those really sharp leaf tips that's just going to poke right on through any polyethylene. So if you have a thick, non-woven landscape fabric under like bark or a gravel mulch, that will hold it back. Of course, I try to stay away from the plastic options as much as possible.

[00:11:42] So my go-to for this is really heavy layers of cardboard combined with really heavy layers of wood mulch. But it's your garden and your choice of what you want to use. The other myth is tilling it all under. This one feels productive. And it's often the worst thing that you can do. Every time a tiller chops a creeping root or a rhizome, it can turn one plant into dozens of plants.

[00:12:10] One two-inch piece of field bindweed root planted in a field study produced 25 shoots in four months. And within 15 months, it had spread more than nine feet. Okay, one little two-inch piece. With Canada thistle, new shoots come up from tilled root pieces about two weeks after you till. And a single cultivation just increases and spreads the population.

[00:12:34] Now, repeated tillage on a very tight schedule can wear these weeds down over a couple of growing seasons, which is how we manage to get rid of field bindweed in one of our fields. But that means leaving ground fallow, not planting anything in there, and working it every couple of weeks. And it is a lot of work. For most home gardeners, a single pass with a tiller is just planting more weeds.

[00:13:01] The other thing that doesn't work is counting on a hard winter. I hear this a lot. Oh, we'll get a good freeze and that'll take care of it. No, for most of these weeds, it won't. Field bindweed roots can handle soil temperatures down to about 21 degrees. Canada thistle roots load up on those sugars in fall. And that helps them to handle that cold, right?

[00:13:24] So, I mean, if you have root pieces that are like right on the soil, they can be killed at about 14 to 21 degrees Fahrenheit, okay? Johnson grass is the big exception. We'll come back to that in a minute because there is a way that we can use winter against it. The other thing that doesn't work is a few weeks under a tarp. Tarping has become a really popular tool, especially on small farms. And it's great for killing annual weeds and creating a very clean bed to start with.

[00:13:53] In summer, most annual weeds die in less than a week under a black tarp. And in cooler seasons, it can take up to about three weeks. Perennials are a different story. There was a tarping guide that was written by researchers across the Northeast. And they were talking about quackgrass and field bindweed and Canada thistle. And they're saying, you know, using the tarp can knock those back, but it's likely not going to be eliminated by tarping periods that are shorter than about six weeks.

[00:14:21] And nutsedge tubers are even worse. They are very resistant. I also said that nearly 10% of farmers who tarp said some weeds had gotten worse since they started. This is one of those places where there's a little bit missing from the research. The authors of that guide say nobody has tested in their region whether a long tarping period, like a full season or more, can wear down that root reserve of those perennial weeds.

[00:14:45] And the bindweed research that I mentioned found that 95% of the data points in the studies they looked at measured results within two years of treatment. So for a weed seed that can last 60 years, two years is a pretty short window. So when someone tells you a method gets rid of bindweed, what the research can mostly tell you is that it knocked it back for a couple of years. I mean, it's still worth doing. Just go in with your eyes open. Gardening gets a lot easier when you're not guessing.

[00:15:15] If your tomatoes struggled, the weeds took over, or you're just not sure where to start next year, a virtual garden consultation with me gets you answers. You fill out a questionnaire, I write you a detailed plan, and we walk through it together on a call. Winter is the time to get ready. Request your quote at justgrowsomething.com slash gardenconsulting or reach out to send this to a gardener you love as a gift. Justgrowsomething.com slash gardenconsulting.

[00:15:47] Okay, so what should you do this fall to battle these perennial weeds? I would work it in this order. The first thing would be to find them and write it down. Okay, right now with crops coming out and the leaves dropping, it is the easiest time all year to seal what you're dealing with. Walk your beds and your paths and your fence lines and just kind of make a simple map. It can just be a little sketch in your garden journal. Mark every patch of bindweed and thistle and johnson grass and nutsedge or whatever your nemesis is.

[00:16:16] And then start a weed calendar, right? Write down which one comes up in spring, when it starts to flower, when it goes to seed. um there's nothing worse than seeing a weeds, flowers, and realizing that you missed your window to deal with it last month. And make sure that you get a positive ID. My shattercane story is proof that the wrong name leads to the wrong plan. Your local extension office can identify weeds from good photos or even a bagged sample, especially if you still have the roots attached.

[00:16:47] Plant ID apps are a handy starting point, but they do get things wrong and so do your Facebook gardening groups. So double check before you build your whole strategy around an app's answer or something that somebody told you on Facebook, okay? Step two is to dig what you can dig. Fall soil is often soft and moist, and that is the best time to pull tap roots and rosettes.

[00:17:14] So dandelions, docks, first year rosettes of plants like poison hemlock and bull thistle. These are all sitting really low and easy to spot right now. Get the crown and as much of the root as you can. With creeping perennials like bindweed and candida thistle, digging isn't going to get every piece, but forking out a small new patch before it's established can actually save you years. Step three is to stop the fall deposits.

[00:17:42] Remember that sugar flowing down to the roots? Any green leaves that your perennial weeds are holding up right now are making deposits. Candida thistle often sends up a second flush of shoots in the fall, and bindweed just keeps growing until frost knocks the top back. Cut, hoe, pull, whatever you need to to get that fall growth so it can't keep refilling the roots. And never let a seed head ripen.

[00:18:08] Cut those flower stalks before they set seed and bag the seed heads instead of composting them. We do not want those around. Step four is to cover the problem spots for the long haul. If you have an area that you can give up for a little while, like a path or a corner of the yard or a bed that you're just willing to let rest, fall is a great time to lay down a light blocking barrier and just leave it. Okay? Use something tough and continuous. Overlap the edges very generously.

[00:18:38] Kind of slipping through. Weigh it all down really, really well because overwintered tarps can blow around in that winter wind. Under that cover, any shoot that the root sends up in the spring has to spend stored energy without ever making any of it back. Just know that going in for the worst perennials, you are looking at multiple years and you have to watch the edges and any holes that show up in that cover.

[00:19:05] If you have a bed that you do want to plant next spring, an overwintered tarp still has value. It'll kill winter annual weeds like chickweed and it's going to keep the soil from getting waterlogged and it's going to let you into the bed earlier in the spring. It's just not going to finish off a really well-established perennial bed all on its own. Step five is to plan the spring strike. Okay?

[00:19:30] Look at your map and your calendar and decide which patches you'll hit when the roots bottom out. For most perennials, that means cutting or pulling the shoots before they get past a handful of leaves and then doing it again every time they come back. For Canada thistle, several studies found a 21-day schedule worked really, really well and removing the shoots before they got very big, again and again and again,

[00:19:59] can exhaust the roots within about two years. For bindweed, cultivating every two to three weeks is the guideline. That is real work, but it's targeted work and it gets easier every round as the plant gets weaker. You just have to stay consistent. And think about competition. A lot of perennial weeds hate the shade, okay?

[00:20:22] A dense summer cover crop can actually shade and kill out things like field bindweed. A vigorous fall planted cover crop is likely going to compete with the bindweed the following spring. So we talked about cover crops a few episodes back and they fit right into this plan. But be cautious. Fall grown seeds can favor Canada thistle because the thistle gets a long stretch to grow without being disturbed.

[00:20:50] So if thistle is your main problem, then plan on a summer smother crop or a cover crop that you'll be mowing down. Now, a word on herbicides. Again, I don't use chemical herbicides in my garden, so I'm not going to walk you through spray schedules. If you do choose to use one, fall is the timing that most extension guides recommend for systemic products on perennial weeds. Remember, the label is the law, so read it and follow it. That's the only real guidance that I can give you, okay?

[00:21:20] Now, let's adjust all of this for where you live. If your winters are cold, say zones 3 to 5, your fall window is very short. Prioritize mapping and digging now before the ground freezes. If you lay down an overwintered cover, secure it very well. Check it after high winds, especially when there's no snow holding it down. You'll lean harder on the spring strike because that's when you'll do most of your damage.

[00:21:46] If you're in the middle zones, like here in zone 6 and a little further south of me in zone 7, you've got the most flexibility. You can dig and cut regrowth well into November in a lot of years. Lay down covers any time before next spring. And you're in the zone where winter can help you with, like, johnson grass in a cold year. I'll explain that in a minute. If your winters are mild, so zones 8 and up, keep in mind that many weeds don't stop. I'm sorry.

[00:22:15] Okay, dandelions, for example, they're going to keep growing through the winter in the warmest parts of the country. So fall and winter can be active weeding seasons for you with regular cutting and digging. On the other hand, warm season perennials like Bermuda grass go dormant. And covering dormant Bermuda grass with plastic in the winter won't control it. So for you, the big light blocking and solarizing push actually happens in the summer when the plant is growing

[00:22:44] and the sun is strong. So let's go weed by weed. We'll start with field bindweed. This is the morning glory relative with the arrow-shaped leaves and the white to pink trumpet flowers. It's the one I've fought for years. And I can tell you, persistence works. These days, I only find the occasional plant. And when one pops up, it's easy to spot and pull up right away. Seedlings are easy to kill for about three to four weeks after they sprout. And after that, they start building their perennial root system.

[00:23:13] So in the fall, cut back any green growth, bag the seed capsules. And if you have a spot that you can cover for a few years, fall is a great time to put down a light-proof barrier. In the spring, hit the new shoots every two to three weeks starting when they are still short. Bindweed thrives in heavy clay and dry conditions. So a well-watered competitive planting gives it a much harder time. Next up is Canada thistle. Despite the name, again, we're sorry, Canada.

[00:23:42] It's actually from Eurasia. It spreads mostly by those creeping roots. And patches are often a single clone. In the fall, keep cutting that second flush of shoots back so it can't recharge. Root pieces that are left on the soil surface can be killed by the hard freezes, which is one small advantage of loosening a patch up in the late fall. But don't count on it to do the whole job. Next spring, start cutting the shoots by late spring when they're about a foot tall.

[00:24:10] And keep going on a roughly three-week schedule. Expect this to take a couple of years. And then there's Johnson grass and Bermuda grass. Now these are two warm season grasses that spread by rhizomes, and they both have weak spots that the other ones don't. Johnson grass rhizomes are very sensitive to the cold, and they die if they freeze.

[00:24:35] And in field conditions, that typically means daily minimum soil temperatures below about 16 degrees Fahrenheit. Fall tillage that cuts the rhizomes into pieces and leaves them near the surface can expose them to killing cold. Light tillage that leaves them buried does the opposite and just spreads them out, okay?

[00:25:00] So this is a fun spot where the sources look like they disagree. One major weed management guide says that tilling Johnson grass in the late fall is useless because the rhizome buds won't sprout in cold soil, so you can't wear them down that way. But then another extension publication says fall tillage can kill Johnson grass. And they kind of are, they're both right, right? Because they're talking about two different ways to kill it.

[00:25:28] In the growing season, you exhaust the rhizomes by making them sprout over and over and over again. In the late fall, you're not trying to exhaust them at all. You're trying to freeze them. And whether that works depends entirely on your winter, okay? The same guide that says freeze killing can fail completely one year and work well the next, okay? So the research that was done was done with tractors, okay? In a garden bed, I would translate it this way.

[00:25:56] In the late fall, fork through your Johnson grass patches, pulling out every rhizome that you can find and get them out of the garden. Whatever pieces you miss near the surface are now at the mercy of the coldest nights. In zone six, some winters are going to do that for us. Some of them are not, all right? Next spring, then you're going to hit the shoots when they're about six to 12 inches tall and keep at it. And that is generally where I fail because I'm dealing with such a large area.

[00:26:24] I can't keep at it because I have six other things that I have to be doing at the same time, all right? You just have to remember that those seedlings can start making rhizomes in as little as 19 days. So you can't let the new seedling slide or it's going to get out of control. And I am absolutely witness to this. Now for Bermuda grass, the warm climate version of this fight, you flip the season, okay? So gardeners in the warm climates do best working in the summer.

[00:26:54] Remember, Bermuda grass rhizomes brought to the surface in that hot, dry weather, they dry out and die as long as you hold off on watering. So black plastic left on actively growing Bermuda grass for at least six to eight weeks in the summer can control it. And clear plastic during the sunniest months can eradicate both plants and seed, okay? Solarizing in the early spring when the sun isn't strong enough can even help it grow.

[00:27:22] And wood chips alone won't stop it, although landscape fabric underneath the mulch will, all right? It's all about tactics with these things. And then there's nutsedge. This is that shiny, grassy looking weed that has a triangular stem, okay? It's a sedge. And its secret weapon is these little tubers. They're sometimes called nutlets.

[00:27:47] In the fall, the leaves die back and those little tubers sit in the soil waiting for spring. So there's not much to pull right now. What you can do this fall is mark where it grows and look at drainage because nutsedge thrives in waterlogged soil. And that often points to a wet spot or a leaky line. Next spring, pull or hoe the young plants before they have five to six leaves, which is before they start forming their new tumors.

[00:28:15] In the summer, that's about every two to three weeks. Each time you remove a sprout, the tuber has to spend energy on another one. So that first sprout uses about 60% of its reserves, and then the second one uses about 20%. But mature tubers can resprout more than three times, so you have to stay with it. If you dig, go 8 to 14 inches deep and never till a nutsedge patch because you will spread the tubers around like wildfire.

[00:28:46] Next one is dandelions. And I will admit, I have a soft spot for dandelions, okay? You can eat the greens and the flowers, feed some beneficial insects early in the season, although maybe not to the extent that people, you know, say they do. But that all ties right back into last week's episode, right? I generally leave them if they're not in the way. But if they're in your beds and you don't want them there, fall is a really good time to just dig them up.

[00:29:12] Their tap roots can go as deep as six and a half feet, and root pieces that are as small as about a quarter of an inch can grow a new plant. Root pieces from near the crown are much more likely to resprout than pieces from near the tip, though. So focus on getting the crown and the top several inches of the root, ideally when the soil is moist and the root can just slide out. The last one is poison hemlock.

[00:29:41] I have mentioned this one before because we deal with this one a lot on our farm. Poison hemlock is a biennial in the carrot family. In its first year, it is a low, ferny rosette, and then the next year it bolts to three to eight feet tall. It flowers, and then it sets seed. It is often mistaken for wild carrot, what we refer to as Queen Anne's lace.

[00:30:06] But poison hemlock has smooth, hairless stems with purple blotches. We say Queen Anne has hairy legs, and that helps us distinguish the difference. Fall is the easiest time to get at the hemlock problem while it is still a rosette. All of the parts of this plant are poisonous if they are eaten, and its toxins may also be absorbed through the skin. So wear gloves when you pull it, and I actually add long sleeves.

[00:30:36] Dig out the taproot, bag the plants, and then come back in spring and look for any rosettes that you may have missed before they bolt. With most of these weeds, you're probably not going to eradicate them completely. What you can do is get them down to where you're spotting the occasional plant and taking care of it in a few minutes, the way that I now do with the bindweed.

[00:31:02] That took years, and it took being stubborn about it. So just understand that this is a long game. And then the research backs up what a lot of us learn the hard way. One method used once rarely works. Okay, several methods used over and over and over again, timed to hit the plant when it's at its weakest, does work.

[00:31:27] Every time you take away a leaf before it can pay the roots back, you are winning just a little bit more. So let's pull it all together. Perennial weeds live in their roots, and fall is when those roots are filling up for winter. That's why fall works so well for herbicides, and it's also why cutting or covering fall regrowth keeps energy out of the bank.

[00:31:52] The roots are weakest in spring, so that's when your repeated cutting does the most damage. Vinegar burns the tops, but it leaves the roots alone. Loose mulch and just a little bit of cardboard is not going to stop established perennials, but a tough, overlapped, light-proof barrier left in place for years can. Tilling usually spreads creeping perennials, and a hard freeze won't kill most of them,

[00:32:20] though it can kill exposed Johnson grass rhizomes in a cold enough winter. And the best results come from combining methods and sticking with them. There is something satisfying about this time of year. The garden is slowing down, and you can finally see the ground. Use that clear view to get ahead of the weeds that have been beating on you, and next summer, hopefully, you will spend a lot less time on your knees pulling those weeds.

[00:32:49] Now, while you've got that bare ground in front of you, there's one more fall job that sets up everything that you will grow next year. Next week, we are talking about fall soil testing and amending. We'll talk about why fall is a great time to test, how to read your results, and which amendments to add now so they're ready to work by spring. Until next time, my gardening friends, keep on cultivating that dream garden, and we'll talk again soon. We'll talk again soon.