SHOT WEED, the Bane of My Gardens and Me...

The temperatures here are back to normal for this time of year. We’re regularly cracking the 50-degree mark on the thermometer, the rains are slowing, and the winter weeds are flourishing.

Speaking of winter weeds, how about that ‘shot weed’? It has taken over the landscape in the photo above!

(For some great info on shot weed, also known as 'hairy bittercress', see: http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=CAHI3)

When we first moved here, I had some fun with that plant. A mere brush from anything causes the seed pods to explode their contents forth, and I definitely caused the release of thousands, nay millions of these seeds. Now I am paying for it with a landscape full of them.

What do I do to get rid of them? Repeat this mantra…get ‘em when they’re small! Be brutal, pull 'em right out of the ground, ‘feet’ and all. Now I try to get them before they send up the flowers, which seem to turn into seed heads in minutes. So it’s likely that I’ll be pulling these pests when they’ve already gone to seed. If that is the case, I act as ‘Gigantress’ and engulf the head with my hand in order to catch the seeds and keep them somewhat confined.

So with the weather so lovely, I’m headed out to the garden to git me some shot weed…