It started raining again Sunday evening. Just a soft, unserious, springlike shower, followed by a few more days of the same. But knowing it was coming, I put in several hours of outdoor work, then prepped for an indoor project.
Since there was not a lot I could do inside until The Wandering Monk arrived to help me drywall a ceiling, I wandered across the little one-lane road and tried to make more progress cleaning the empty lot that will someday, if all my plans and dreams come to fruition, contain a gravel path with steps down to a homemade pergola, a small picnic area, a few fruit trees, a firepit, and maybe some chickens or even a goat or two.
It’s a long way from most of that and I’m beginning to despair.
It looks nice from the house, but it’s got two terrible (I’m beginning to think intractable) problems: knotweed and hazardous litter.
I curse the name of whoever brought knotweed to these shores as an “ornamental.”
You will find gardening discussions online where people talk about how many years it took them to kill off a single small patch or hedge of knotweed. Amid the long discussions about poisons, barriers, slicing, spraying, injecting, bagging, and otherwise fighting this incredibly invasive species, you’ll find people suggesting that if you have knotweed, you should just make fighting it your lifetime hobby. Or take a flame-thrower to it because nothing else is going to work. One person suggested a hand grenade, only to be reminded by the very next poster that being blown to bits is exactly what knotweed wants, because every tiny fragment of its root system can start a whole new patch. And take over the world.
Nightmare stuff. And it’s big, too. Six, maybe eight, feet high.
I’ve got three varieties of it, and not just a few feet, but a triangular patch maybe 75-feet on a side and 50 feet across at the bottom of the hill. This isn’t all on my property. That’s the next problem. As long as my neighbor thinks knotweed is the bees knees for her honeybee hives (and she does), I can never, ever be rid of it. No matter what I do, it will march right back to my property from hers. I know. Three summers’ attempts to poison it, weed-whack it, mow it, and generally push it back have accomplished very, very little.
It is simply one of the most invasive plant species on this bloody planet. Kudzu. But taller. Bamboo. But less useful. Bureaucrats. But … yeah, herbacious bureaucrats. That bad.
I think the only alternative is to build a serious barrier — seriously serious — to stop its expansion. Like an underground wall 18 inches deep to block its rhizomes, and a six foot break beyond that with something solid — not landscape cloth — laid down to keep even a drop of sunlight from penetrating, then rock or bark or perhaps even brick or concrete on top of that.
But yikes. That’s labor-intensive and pricey … and what if it still doesn’t work?
And what’s worse, I have glass that proliferates worse than the knotweed.
I’ve loaded I cannot tell you how many trash cans with broken glass, rusted metal, bags of cat poop, rotted carpeting, plastic buckets, broken blinds, and other trash from that lot. The refrigerator, three toilets, 70’s-vintage microwave, and several old water tanks were relatively easy. But but the glass, rusted nails, and other jagged hunks of assorted metal are defeating me.
Several spots over there were used for dumping/burning and they’re bad (somebody should have told those past homeowners you can’t burn glass or metal). But the worst by far is a large patch where an old shed/garage/barn used to be. Neighbors tell me the building blew down in the Ought-Seven storm. There’s little trace of the building, but OMG, the rat’s nest of crap stored in it is now largely embedded in the ground.
There were at least (I now realize) a dozen large window panes stored in there, along with canning jars, and their bits are now as much as seven inches deep in the soil. Or worse — seven inches deep in the soil but with edges sticking up two inches in the grass. I’ll spend an hour or two clearing an area … and days later, in addition to the stuff I’ve inevitably missed, new pieces work their way to the surface.
I’m not so worried about the small pieces that’ll give you an owey, but the ones that could slice right to your femoral artery if you fell on them. Oh, there are “owey” pieces, too. Thousands of them. Plus wrist slicers, tendon cutters, and assorted other varieties of potential harm buried in that otherwise rich, loamy earth. But the big ones worry me. Saturday I reached under a fern and pulled out of the ground beneath it a shard two feet long and about 15 inches wide. In all the times I’d walked that area, I’d never even seen it.
Yikes. And I thought I’d gotten all the monster pieces last year. This one wasn’t even near the others. So what have I not yet found?
Sunday’s project was metal. I noticed a two-foot arch of 1/2-inch steel cable poking above the ground. I managed to dig out about twenty feet of it before it descended too far into the dirt for me to continue. I’ll have to borrow bolt cutters. Just let the rest remain hidden.
I did manage to unearth 10 rusty plumbing pipes, some as much as 20-feet long and six inches underground for most of their length.
That stuff … I cuss but I manage.
The glass, though. I don’t think I’ll ever feel confident I’ve gotten the worst of it. Digging out those old pipes I found large pockets of window-glass among them. Hundreds of shards, the largest six or eight inches long.
Not sure what to do to make that pretty piece of land safe. Dump “clean fill” over it? Run a rototiller through it and hope to either plow the worst under or bring the last of it to the surface? I simply don’t know. And again, I can’t think of any solution that doesn’t involve painful amounts of $$$$$. More than I have or can afford with foundation work still ahead on the house.
Nevertheless, it’s far too nice a bit of land to give up on.
Besides, if I give up, within a few years the knotweed will have rampaged through the neighborhood, heading first for the property of the family with the most charmingly landscaped property on the street.
They’re nice people, but I have a feeling they’d have a few words for me if I allowed that to happen.
So. Knotweed and glass: YOU WILL NOT WIN! I don’t know how I’ll defeat you. But defeat you, I will.
Surely I must be smarter than a plant and a lot of nasty waste.
Right?
OTOH, if I’m not, maybe you are. Ideas???
My first thought as far as the glass is concerned was “rototiller”. Break everything up as deep as you can reach so you’re dealing with bits rather than blades, and plant some nice, thick, dense grass (or put in raised beds). Paving blocks to walk on.
No help with the Knotweed, I’m afraid. We have Virginia Creeper to contend with and I periodically cut the stems and tear the vines out in the back 40. The lawn tractor makes that easy. If I’m getting rid of grass and weeds in a patch to change the landscaping or add to the garden, I’ll lay out some old carpet on that spot for a couple of months, nothing survives under that.
That sounds like a real challenge, Claire. You could screen the soil to remove the larger chunks. Labor intensive, of course. Then put fill over it all later.
I found some interesting information on control, but it’s not all that encouraging. http://www.invasive.org/gist/moredocs/polspp01.pdf
Anyway, reading that stuff about knotweed makes our problems with bindweed seem rather simple. Bindweed is a relative of morning glories, and is seriously invasive, but it can easily be killed with a rather nasty herbicide that also kills pretty much everything else as well. Luckily, the everything else can be replanted immediately, and the chemical doesn’t hurt them.
And, interestingly enough, the website above lists covering the knotweed as ineffective. I’ve not found it effective for bindweed either, but then I didn’t have carpet, just cardboard and black plastic. The spray does a much better job, immediately. But you have to spray at least twice because the seeds from the previous year soon come up.
Don’t you wish apricots and other good stuff could grow this well and be as hardy? I wouldn’t mind a big patch of asparagus like that. 🙂
I know that this will sound a bit over the top, but……….what you really need is a back hoe with a loader on the front. Aaannnd, you need to sift all of the dirt that you dig up.
As for the knot weed…….I just dunno how you will be able to get rid of it without digging up and killing all of it, including the neighbors stuff.
Bob
III
Have you had a tetanus shot recently?
Divide your projects in doable areas and try not to see the whole picture as one large mess. Take each planned section at a time. Measure the pergola area/firepit/chicken house, goat shed, etc. and flatten it, bury some corrugated metal or other deep edging around the perimeter(s), and add the old carpet as RG suggested. When ready to build, you’ll at least be in better control.
Knotweed is all over the woods behind my yard and occ. single plants raise their heads in my raised bed (about 50 yds away). I pull them and try to dig out the roots, but it’s a constant, however not overwhelming, battle to keep it out. You have a major war.k.) A machete or scythe will cut it down to size (watch your feet!), followed by constant mowing until you can smother or destroy it in some way.
Lay cement and paint it green?
I was going to say find out how deep your barrier must go and then add a cushion, but then Pat says your weed travels 50 feet.
We have Tree of Heaven here. I’m told chemicals, cutting the big trees, and mowing. I’m not sure how far out to go. I’m considering fencing goats in the area. Of course it’s in every fence row in the area and also spreads by fluffy seed. So… I’m with you excepting the broken glass. Be careful.
You speak of having goats in future. Goats purged multiflora rose form a portion of my property. I do not know if they will eat Japanese Knotweed, but I would suggest you fence the property, and then get goats.
When it is time to plant your fruit trees, you will have a different problem.
If it wasn’t for the metal, I’d second or third the rototiller suggestion. A rototiller can defeat glass. But steel cable will defeat the hell out of a rototiller.
I’m not familiar with knotgrass, but seriously have you tried a flamethrower? You actually can get one at any Lowes, at least around here. Cut them down to manageable length first, of course, and then burn baby burn.
If they don’t sell them in your region, email me and I’ll send you one. They’re the bees knees for locoweed and tumbleweed, which are also damaging and invasive.
Never heard of knotweed before. It’s even illegal to have it growing on your property in Australia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallopia_japonica Good grief.
CB – That’s 50 YARDS. But frankly, I don’t know how far it will travel by ryzomes. We have a lot of wind here, and the lawn is huge, gets cut frequently, and the knotweed is throughtout the yard, right up to the raised bed.
Dig down several feet and dump it all in a deep hole someone wants filled. Then get new dirt from elsewhere. Do goats eat knotweed? Or do guinea pigs?
I’m trying to picture guinea pigs eating plants that are 15 feet tall! LOL
The goats, probably. But just remember they must be contained (difficult, as they are fence climbers) and watched carefully because they will eat everything, including rose bushes and all other desirable plantings. They strip the bark off trees – FAST.
You’ve got your work cut out for you. Without hiring someone with heavy equipment and a truck to completely clear and cover with new soil, I’d think the easiest way would be goats. Watch Craigslist for used fencing materials to contain the goats. Often you can get fences just for taking them down and carting them away. Then watch the local feed store bulletin board for goats. They can be found for free or for free lending. They’ll eat everything down to where you can deal with it. Then use a spading fork to clear and sift 6-8 square feet per day until you’re done.
The other option is to stand off and nuke it from orbit.
I would remove the big debris and just sheet mulch over the rest
Reminds me of one of my last jobs with the Veterans Admin; adding 20,000 gravesites to Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery. Only of course we had to clear debris down far enough dig the graves.
We ran into several hundred yards of water/sewer pipe, apparently for an old barracks complex no one remembered.
But of course it was a government job, so we had all your tax money to spend on it.
Goats are interesting creatures. Before you invite any over you might want to wander over to your local 4-H office, make nice with some of the kids raising goats, and get the straight skinny.
You might try renting a dump container like General contractors use at home building sites and then hiring a Bobcat Operator to come and clear out as deep as you need. Not sure cost of container. Bobcat with operator around here is $75 per hour. May be worth it if your lot is not too big. Then, you can get clean topsoil brought in and spread.
Good luck!
With the guinea pigs I was more thinking of letting them keep it down after it had been machete’d down to size. Or, why let goats and guinea pigs have all the fun? You can eat it, too!
I’ll second Joel’s suggestion of a flame thrower.
I have one of those that fits on the little camping style gas bottles (I have two actually) and can send it along If you want/need? The gas bottle cannot be sent via USPS but they are available at most hardware stores and sporting goods stores If they carry camping gear.
The glass and metal is a whole nother problem. and several others have explained the method I would use. Time and elbow grease required.
Best,
Capn
I also found this while noodling around …
http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/conquer-invasive-japanese-knotweed-by-eating-it-zbcz1504.aspx
Leda Meredith has her own site with recipes for most of the wild weeds she harvests for food and or meds.
http://ledameredith.com/foraging-for-japanese-knotweed-2/
Enjoy
capn
Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I’m rather fond of the nuking idea. The neighbors might object to that (but presumably only for milliseconds). I actually DO have a flamethrower; it came with the 20-pound propane tank I bought at a garage sale. I’ve never used it.
As to eating knotweed (or using it for medicinal purposes as I believe Ellendra suggested last time I bemoaned the dire weed), I could not consume that much knotweed if I lived to be 100 — but I might be driven to give it a try. Unfortunately, that still leaves the problem of containing it within some reasonable area. Because eating it would not stop it from continuing to seek World Domination.
Goats might be in the future. At least a loaner goat.
And no, Pat, my last tetanus shot is long expired — but believe me, I wouldn’t dare neglect a tetanus shot on purpose and I think about my lack of one every time I get into those trash heaps. It’s just that the one I had 16 years ago caused such a severe reaction that nobody wants to give me another one unless/until I’ve actually been injured. I hate that. But since I was in pain for a year after that last shot, I see where they’re coming from.
I would love to just have the soil (and trash) skinned off that land and dumped either in a dumpster or down the hill where most of the knotweed grows, then have it replaced with good soil. But we are talking the kind of Big Bux for that that I don’t have — not with foundation work still ahead.
Would goats be safe in this environment, I wonder?
Uh-oh.
Japanese knotweed. Now I know what to call that plant I noticed last summer growing in a clump near the creek.
Just yesterday I found a new patch of it sprouting right at the water’s edge a hundred feet away from last year’s clump.
Crap. And I thought it was a really attractive and interesting plant discovery.
Good luck with the glass and metal. I know how it is…but mine isn’t so extensive or deeply buried as yours. Not fun.
I don’t know much about weed control, and that knotweed sounds like a tough critter. Absent the introduction of the knotweed psyllid, it sounds like that life-long hobby thing is the unfortunate other method. Your bee-keeping neighbor wouldn’t care for that solution either. But then bees have been surviving for a long time in areas without knotweed too.
I’m sure the USDA would have a problem with the introduction of a knotweed-eating plant louse. But I guess the population would be controlled simply by the fact that’s all they eat, and as they eat their own food supply down, their own population would necessarily decrease.
As for the trash, I’m with the excavation folks. Damned expensive though. In particular, I’ve seen the glass problem, only not nearly to the severity you’re describing. Rusty has the only other viable solution I can think of, which is to completely cover the whole lot with raised beds and walkways. That ain’t gonna be cheap either, but at least you can do it over time, and probably take advantage of found / scavenged materials for some of it.
I think hops would be a good thing to grow on your pergola.
Take the torch to them!
The directions claim you’re just supposed to flame them enough to explode the water molecules inside the leaves and stems, but that never looked like anything was accomplished. There is a much higher satisfaction level when you burn off everything above ground, leaving nothing but a smoldering bunch of twigs poking out. C tells me it looks very Californian after I torch weeds.
I can see how scorched earth became a popular military tactic.
Behind my fence is a huge field of Johnson grass and it had come into the back one third of the back yard over the years (previous owner). I mowed about a 15 foot section behind the fence and then I used Roundup weed and grass killer on the Johnson grass that came back up and in my yard (pulled hundreds of them in the yard by hand, too). After fighting it all last year (first year in the house) I got it under control – for now. Roundup has killed everything I have used it on but you definitely do not want to use it on a windy day and we have a lot of wind in my area! You can buy refillable jugs with built-in sprayer wands and a little bit on the leaves kills the whole plant. It will probably kill knotweed, too, but do not have any here so cannot be sure.
As others have mentioned, the best way to clean your property is excavation and then new soil brought in by the truck load BUT they also mentioned the cost. It would probably be ‘free’ to get an estimate so you’ll know how much it will really cost.
Well, at least you will have plenty of stuff to do over the next decade and will certainly not be bored! 😉
I’m loathe to suggest it, but…Government? Might there be a local agency charged with environmental-whatever that could apply some funds to a cleanup? It sounds like scraping the top 12-18 inches and sifting it would resolve the glass issue, and probably the metal issue as well. The cable is “either cut it below grade or pull it out”; the cutting is 3 minutes with a cutting torch – although it’s posible it will float back to the surface in a few years – the pulling it out is just a horsepower issue.
Once involved, government is impossible to get rid of, though, so caveat emptor.
Good idea to borrow a goat, and stake it out in the knotweed area. You will have to check on it frequently and make sure it has water. Just remember to use a chain or cable to stake it out. They are happy to eat rope… any kind of rope. I have no idea whether or not they will eat the knotweed, however. A lot of people think they can use goats to eat weeds and grass… but goats don’t generally eat that unless they can’t get anything else. They are naturally bush and tree browsers. They prefer trees and leaves, bark and branches to almost anything else. They don’t really LIKE hay, even fancy alfalfa hay… so they will waste most of it.
I love goats, and raised them for many long years, but they are seriously frustrating in many respects… and they are escape artists to the max. They can be contained, mostly, but it involves serious fence and constant checking on them.
The first chore of EVERY morning was to walk the fence line, looking for the latest condemned section. They lean on it, try to climb it, and eventually even push posts out of the ground or break them. Then the little monsters get out and terrorize the neighborhood. LOL
Don’t know much about eradicating weed plants, so I’m not much help there. However I do recommend that if you do the glass clearing by hand that you get a pair of Cut Resistant gloves. Here’s one I ran across from my daily perusal of Cool Tools.
http://kk.org/cooltools/tool-tip-cut-resistant-gloves/
Hey Claire,
Sounds like the previous owners were a piece of work. I had a similar, smaller problem with my lot when I bought it. I got some of the neighbors kids to give me a hand. I don’t suppose…
I just sent an email to a couple of horticulture guys where I used to work about getting rid of the knotweed. That weed sure is nasty. I will post what they say later.
Hey Clair my friend who is a horticulturist said the following…
Knotweeds……..hmmm………I believe it is an annual weed that spreads by seed. Cultivation works best, unless they want to get into chemicals. Which is a nasty option.
So it looks like you have a little work cut out for you.
Be careful around the glass and remember that no matter how dark it looks there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.
Claire,
Make sure you let your beekeeping neighbor know if you are going to chem the area. Things like roundup claim to be “safe” for bees and such after a half hour or so, but she may want to close up her hives while you’re dosing.
Hi Claire,
Burying glass is a bad idea as, like rocks, it tends to work its way back up to the surface. Removing the top layer with a backhoe would be the easiest and safest but for course not cheap. As for the dreaded knotweed quite honestly roundup, even in the commercial grades, is not particularly effective. To prevent it’s spread or at least slow it down you need to dig down at least two feet and put a solid barrier, here we use overlapping slate. Heavy but Free! But Something similar to cement board would do it. Then you need to burn burn burn the first sign of its return.
I understand the garbage/glass problem all to well, I’m afraid.
Buried (and resurfacing) glass is the bane of my pasture.
One of the previous owners of our land used to burn garbage piles all over the place…never the same spot. So glass pops up every time we get any moisture.
And then, the owner right before us, used to, with her pals, shoot glass bottles off the pasture fence, and not clean anything up.
Oh, did I mention this is the very same pasture she kept her own 2 horses?
You can guess what shards of glass do to horse hooves. 🙁
In our 2 1/2 years here, I figured it out, I picked up enough brown glass (beer bottle glass) to make $50 from what would have been empties returned for the $0.10 deposit.
Oh, WolfSong, I do hear ya. And I’ll bet every moment you’re picking up that glass you’re grumbling, “What the HELL were they thinking???” Or worse.