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Gardening Experiences October Article |
SOME GARDENING EXPERIENCES ON THE COSTA TROPICAL written by Mike Spencer
 Let’s start with clearing some land this month:
Firstly it was get rid of the weeds or “malas hierbas” as we came to know and hate them. I had been rather impressed seeing our Spanish neighbours on their land armed with large back-pack pressure sprayers and had bought one. No point in having the weapon without the ammunition so I also had a 5 litre container of what I was assured was a vicious weed killer. The man at Agrimesa (the ‘Vivero’ centre where I bought both) had been very helpful and written the measures on the container for me as my Spanish at that time did not go much beyond ordering 2 beers.
I put in the correct measure of weed killer into the sprayer and filled it up with around 5 gallons of water. Have you ever tried hoisting 5 gallons of water onto your back (naturally without the help of your wife who is nowhere to be found when you really need her!)? You have no idea how heavy water is until you have done that! Anyhow, feeling very professional, but with the straps cutting brutally into my shoulders I pumped up the pressure and liberally sprayed malas hierbas.
 Within a few days they started going brown and droopy, and about two weeks later were patently obviously dead. I now know what I was clueless about then .......... purely by chance I had bought a systemic weed killer rather than a selective one. This was ideal for clearing a badly weeded area that did not have any flowers in the vicinity. The diluted weed killer, when sprayed all over the leaves, is absorbed into the weeds ‘system’ and kills it completely – roots and all. A selective weed killer somehow decides to only attack weeds, but kills only the part of the plant that is above ground, leaving the roots to start again – the manufacturers would no doubt claim otherwise, but from my experience selective weed killers are a waste of time and money. In our early days spraying proved rather costly with a high plant mortality rate. I was prone to use the systemic killer rather too freely in the middle of maturing flower beds!
What advice can I give you so far? ......... buy a smaller back-pack sprayer that is not so heavy when full, unless you are built like Rambo ........ when using a systemic killer near plants choose a windless day and buy the cowl that will fit over the end of the nozzle ........ don’t think you will only need to spray malas hierbas whilst you are initially clearing the land – if you have a few thousand square metres you will always being doing it periodically, and particularly in the Spring. The weeds just love that time of year with the warm, sunny winter and spring days and the occasional torrential storms to irrigate them.
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Go to our Home and Garden Section to see other adventures by Mike and Trudy
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