Re: eradicating onion weed
- Subject: Re: eradicating onion weed
- From: R* D* <s*@earthlink.net>
- Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2007 00:16:59 -0400
At 11:29 PM 8/6/2007, N Sterman wrote:
A friend sent me this question:
Do you know how to kill the insidious onion weed? I don't know the
species but the bulb has many bulblets that drop off into the soil
when you attempt to dig out the bulb. Also, the seeds are ever
present and propagate like mad. Some kind person gave me this bulb
as a gift and I have been working on its eradication ever since. One
of my areas has been weeded with soil removed down 10".
With our omnipresent wild garlic in North Carolina, I can remove
established clumps in spring if I wait to about one week prior to
blooming. At this point in their life cycle, they are spending most
of their biomass in top growth and letting go of their root
systems. I can pull out the main clump, usually 1 to 5 bigger bulbs,
with up to 20 split-off smaller bulbs at the same time. Any other
time in the growing season, all I do is rip off the foliage and get
one or two big bulbs. Trial and error is the best way to time out
when to pull. When they are ready, you can feel the roots starting
to give, and I crank up the tug a notch or two higher to test the
effectiveness of the extraction.
