Flipping oxalis!

[IndigoElectron]

I have loads of oxalis in my garden, and can't seem to get rid of it (see photos below).







This was my first year of gardening, and the garden was pretty overgrown before I started (we moved here 2 years ago). I prepared the soil by doing lots of digging, and think I might have made the oxalis problem worse.

I was weeding by snapping the stem until a friend told me that oxalis needs to be dug up, to remove the roots and nodules. I have tried to remove as much as possible, but it's difficult without also digging up my veg and flowers. There is loads of it in the cracks between the paving stones too.

I was wondering whether I need to resort to using a chemical weedkiller. My plan for the garden border (once the flowers and veg are finished) was to dig in some garden compost to improve the soil and leave it over the winter. So there will be nothing growing in the border for about 4 months (or longer, if I start now).

If I do use weedkiller, which one should I use? And will all traces of it be gone before I start again in spring? The other concerns are that I have a 2 year old who uses the garden, plus there are some plants further along the border that I don't want to kill (see photo below, you can see the tree and primroses on the left).



Thanks for any advice on how to get rid of this annoying weed!

[Kristen]

I have loads of oxalis in my garden, and can't seem to get rid of it

I only have it (luckily ) in containers in greenhouse, and I have pretty much eradicated it by pulling up whenever it appears - I find I can pull it out by the roots OK-ish, so I figure that I have weakened it over a year or two by that method.

So basically the old adage "Never let it see a Sunday"

If I do use weedkiller, which one should I use? And will all traces of it be gone before I start again in spring? The other concerns are that I have a 2 year old who uses the garden, plus there are some plants further along the border that I don't want to kill (see photo below, you can see the tree and primroses on the left).

A Glyphosate based weedkiller should do the job. It will kill anything green that it touches, so keep it (and any spray drift) off plants you want to keep. It is neutralised on contact with the soil, so no residual effect to worry about for crops that are planted later, or children eating things etc. (It is relatively non toxic to Humans, so even an accident with the concentrate is unlikely to be very serious - although obviously treat any such accident with proper seriousness. I'm only mentioning Toxicity for completeness, not as any sort of encouragement to be slapdash )

Glyphosate needs at least 6 hours dry after application, so watch out for forecast rain, and it will take to weeks to reach the roots and then properly get to work, so you won't notice an overnight kill (although you can use Resolva which also contains additional herbicides that will have that effect, which helps to "see where you have been"). It also needs to be applied when plants are actively growing - so at this time of year "sooner rather than later" would be better.

Up to you to decide if you are happy to have Glyphosate used near your food crops. It has been extremely widely used in agriculture since the 70's, so in theory we should know about any significant side effects by now ... but many here grow veg for the certainty that the food has not been contaminated with anything ...

[IndigoElectron]

That's brilliant, thanks Kristen :-) I'll get some weedkiller, just want the blimmin stuff gone!

[Two_Sheds]

There is loads of it in the cracks between the paving stones

That's easy: pour boiling water on it

I have it in abundance on the allotment this year, it's a PiTA, and does need digging out as the roots and nodules are a few cm below the surface

[IndigoElectron]

Thanks Two Sheds. Do you mean the weedkiller won't work?

[Two_Sheds]

No, I mean that I prefer not to use poison if I can help it.

[Nicos]

I'd put salt on them on the path and boiling water on the rest.
It's much more accurate and less dangerous to wildlife...and near enough as free!

I hate using weedkillers, but if all else failed I'd also use Glyphosate as an absolutely last resort.

Actually , when I saw you piccies my fist thoughts were how pretty it is!!

Can you really not live with it??

[hellybore]

Actually , when I saw you piccies my fist thoughts were how pretty it is!!

Can you really not live with it??

I have it everywhere in my garden, I just leave it as groundcover unless I want to plant something, then I pull some out. It has the prettiest flowers.

[Zelenina]

I saw two kinds of oxalis weeds in my Dad's garden in Suffolk when I was visiting. One kind has little bulbs and the other has a wiry taproot. The bulby one was much easier to pull up. Which kind is yours Indigo?

In my garden I only have the wiry rooted one. It has yellow flowers, and the leaves turn purple in sunny places. There wasn't a lot of it last year, and only in one part of my garden, and I made the mistake of thinking it was pretty and harmless so I left it alone.

Now I'm regretting that because it has multiplied, and is appearing in other parts of the garden. The seed pods explode and scatter the seeds, and I'm probably carrying them on my feet and tools as well. It's nasty because it invades clumps of other low growing plants and chokes them out. And it's perennial and very tough and will grow in sun or shade.

I've found I can get rid of it quite well from beds if I have the time and patience to dig out the roots thoroughly with a hand fork. But of course that doesn't work for the plants growing in crevices.