Getting rid of dandelions can be a challenge because of their twelve in roots and brittle tap roots. There are ways to do it without using harmful chemical agents.
Dandelions are probably the most obnoxious weeds of them all. These are perennial broadleaf plants, and because they are perennial they will come back year after year, that is, unless you do something about it.
Simply pulling these plants by hand is not a very effective way to kill dandelions because their roots are 12 inches long, extremely thin and break very easy, they have tap roots that are extremely brittle. You could dig them up but this leaves your lawn looking like a freshmen’s face right before junior prom, with a lot of unsightly pock marks.
Then there are weed killers to consider; on the one hand you have the organic and on the other hand you have the inorganic or, better known as, highly toxic. A household product that can be used to organically kill dandelions is vinegar.
The problem with natural weed killers is that they do not infect the tissue of the plant, so they only kill the part of the plant that they come in contact with. The problem with non-natural weed killers is that they are doing just as much damage to you as they are to the plant, but the plant is dying because it is a lot weaker than you are.
There is one more option for weed control and that is pre-emergent substances. These work to guard the ground from weed seeds from sprouting; however, the problem is that these only work to prevent they do not actually kill any weeds.
So the trick to killing dandelions naturally isn’t going to be one or the other, but it is a compound of all three of these methods. First wet your soil to loosen the plants hold, and then grab near the base of the plant and pull up as much of the plant’s root as you can.
Next pour vinegar into the hole of the weed you just uprooted. You may have to pour a bit into the hole just to make sure that the whole of the tap root has been soaked.
Then to protect your yard or garden from becoming infested by future dandelions you are going to have to use a pre-emergent. A very great pre-emergent is corn gluten meal, or you can use any other product that contains corn gluten in it.
Using all three methods together works best on grass lawns. Sometime the pre-emergent can make it difficult for you to grow desired plants in flowerbeds or in gardens.
