Sometimes it works
Oct. 14th, 2005 19:01![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillI know I'm sometimes not the brightest cookie in the drawer, but once in a while I figure things out.
Long story short(er): I have a bunch of newspaper laid in my backyard to keep the weeds from growing. The wind's been blowing it around. I've been putting fallen leaves on it, but the leaves aren't falling in great enough quantity yet to cover even a fraction of the area I need.
Meanwhile, I turned on a sprinkler this summer by (sort of) accident, and it's been watering a weed we have. A weed with a root system 50' in diameter, which has smothered the back lawn and had a go at the trees. I turned off the sprinkler, had a look at the knee-high flowering vines of the weed, and said hm.
Twenty minutes with a rake gave me four wheelbarrowfulls of vine, and that's about half of it. Tearing off the surface growth doesn't kill it, and it grows during the rainy season, so there will be more. Meanwhile, the nets of vines tangle together and weigh down the paper, giving me security that the wind will neither tear the paper up nor blow the mulch away, as it might blow leaves. The vines can't grow roots, and it makes no seeds (thank heavens). Three wheelbarrowfulls will cover the whole area I already have papered, about twelve by twenty feet.
Two birds with one stone. Booyah.
Long story short(er): I have a bunch of newspaper laid in my backyard to keep the weeds from growing. The wind's been blowing it around. I've been putting fallen leaves on it, but the leaves aren't falling in great enough quantity yet to cover even a fraction of the area I need.
Meanwhile, I turned on a sprinkler this summer by (sort of) accident, and it's been watering a weed we have. A weed with a root system 50' in diameter, which has smothered the back lawn and had a go at the trees. I turned off the sprinkler, had a look at the knee-high flowering vines of the weed, and said hm.
Twenty minutes with a rake gave me four wheelbarrowfulls of vine, and that's about half of it. Tearing off the surface growth doesn't kill it, and it grows during the rainy season, so there will be more. Meanwhile, the nets of vines tangle together and weigh down the paper, giving me security that the wind will neither tear the paper up nor blow the mulch away, as it might blow leaves. The vines can't grow roots, and it makes no seeds (thank heavens). Three wheelbarrowfulls will cover the whole area I already have papered, about twelve by twenty feet.
Two birds with one stone. Booyah.
