Weeds might not be as interesting as flowers or food to some. I happen to enjoy the challenge of identifying them and (occasionally) defeating them. I even find pulling them relaxing.

Maybe this "bouquet" of pulled flixweed plants couild be considered a battle trophy. (Don't worry, I bagged them up as soon as I took the picture.)

Now that it's finally sunny and calm, I have quite a backlog. As you know, we moved into this house last fall and it had been totally neglected for at least a couple of years. My current battlefield is below:





I'm trying to pull all the flixweed while the ground is still moist from the recent rains and before it goes to seed.

Whitetop, on the other hand, can't be removed by pulling or digging. About the only cure for that is Roundup.



Whitetop is considered a noxious weed by the state of Nevada, but unfortunately it got way out of control here. I need a lot of Roundup, but I will be relentless.

Remember my great carpet pad experiment? I concluded in March that carpet pad was useless for anything but sprouting seeds. I intended to roll up all the pads, but thank goodness I've been too busy (or lazy) to do that because a miracle has occurred since then! All those weed seedlings and everything else underneath it died.



I can see I'll be fighting this battle for a while, so I have to enjoy the small victories! (You can see my current effort on the right: cardboard covered with grass clippings.)