On Mon, 16 Feb 2004 07:22:51 -0500, vincent p. norris
wrote:

how do i get rid of garden weeds and dandilions without using
commercial weedkillers as id rather use organic as its safer for my
kids and pets if anyone can help id be very grateful

It has been posted here that gin is a good herbicide.

vince norris

Don't get lulled into a false sense of security by words like
'organic' or 'natural' all "organic" means is it's carbon based, and
arsenic and nicotine are "natural" substances, doesn't make them any
less deadly.

Safest way to kill dandelions is the dandelion digger, good exercise,
you can work at it getting a few at a time, cutting them out with the
digger deeply enough, and they're gone. mow before they bloom in the
spring to give you more time, but they will counter by blooming as
close to the ground as possible, but the first mowing will give you a
few more days. But if you dig them, then scratch up the surface of
the soil where the broad leafed weeds had been and scatter a bit of
lawn grass seed there, water it in, and scatter a little dry grass or
straw lightly over it.. and water all of them keeping them moist and
when the grass fills in, you won't get so many dandelions as they
can't grow where there's enough grass to choke them out.

So, keep the lawn well seeded, and that won't give the dandelions a
place to grow. If you have problem areas, like shade, get grass seed
blended for it. And in areas where grass won't grow, then get
perennials which will grow there. Hostas, ferns .. there are even
ferns for dry shade. You just got to look around. Try to get out of
the loop of feeding a lawn with high nitrogen fertilizer to make it
grow lush.. because then you have to up the water or it'll burn out,
and then you'll have to pay someone to mow twice as often. It's not
good for the lawn, the environment as over fertilizing eventually ends
up in the water table or in rivers and ponds and makes for algae
blooms. It's cheaper not to fertilize and usually it's not needed,
just water deeply when you wanter, and then you can water less often,
and mow less often. If you NEED to fertilize, then fertilize for
healthy roots.

If you just can't stand the weeds, and you're not willing to hand
weed, then put some round up in a squirt bottle and carefully spray
each weed., then after the weed dies, rake up the soil, and reseed the
spots that die. Roundup kills everything, including lawn, so just be
careful and precise.

Of course you can dig it all out and plant vegetables, herbs, small
fruit, and flowers :-D That's what I did .. even the driveway! LOL I
didn't have room to grow even a fraction of what I wanted to grow, so
I just said grass is evil and out it came. Of course, then I had more
weeds, but there are new things like the fabric weed barriers, and you
can lay down several layers of newsprint you then wet and mulch over
that'll keep new weeds down. :-D

Good gardening!!

Janice