A. syriaca & Roundup

[Anne Kilmer]

Well, as to DDT, you can tolerate quite a bit of it in your tissues
without apparent harm ... if you are so fortunate as to bear children,
you unload a good deal of it into them, and if you nurse them, quite a
bit more goes into them. You store it in your fat ... and when you lose
weight, you get to enjoy it all over again. 
Most of us over 50 are walking around with so much DDT in our muscle
that Publix wouldn't be allowed to sell us as meat ... 
It is teratogenic, of course. And when the gentleman in question sits on
his eggs, he'll break the shells. 

As for Roundup, the fairies don't like it, Diane. The critters it
damages are the very tiny ones. Chews the heck out of the mycorrhiza,
I'll betcha. 

Heloise recommends straight vinegar between your bricks, to kill weeds.
Over the centuries this will probably break down your bricks, but your
garden will be a shopping mall in 50 years anyway. 
Playing with the Ph will get rid of quite a few weeds ... daisies, for
instance, which some people don't like in their grass. 

The flamethrower suggestion was serious. i've seen people wafting about
with a little gadget the size of a teakettle, and a very long spout,
blasting away with a little blue flame. 

Very thick layers of newspaper will even discourage torpedo grass, which
can penetrate concrete. 
The more you stir up your soil, the better a bed you create for weed
seeds to sprout in. Planting perennials and allowing them to weave
together creates a garden bed that weeds can't find a place in. 

If you're gardening *with* nature, planting natives, using lots of mulch
and naturalistic arrangements of plants, you shouldn't need to fall back
on chemicals. 
A clever gardener interplants bulbs with perennials that die back, and
can be cut back just before the bulbs do their thing. Thus there's no
room for weeds, nor time for them to get started.  
The president of a local Native Plants society, with acres of butterfly
garden, explained to me that he had to use Roundup on the Spanish Needle
(Bidens spp) along his driveway, lest people looking at his garden be
shocked. This lovely little native is larval host to at least three
butterflies and provides nectar for many others. 

I had to kill him. 

And the local garden guru, agricultural agent and columnist was still
recommending Vapam after they took it off the market. I bet he still
uses it, and I know people who have a lifetime supply of DDT in their
garage, and are still using it. 

They make an applicator for Roundup and such, with a sponge at the end
of a hollow wand. Use one of those, if you must. Shoes, rubber gloves. 

Cheers
Anne Kilmer
south florida

Rcjohnsen wrote:
> 
> << Subject: Re: A. syriaca & Roundup
> From: gochfeld at EOHSI.RUTGERS.EDU  (Michael Gochfeld)
> Date: Mon, Mar 20, 2000 11:32 AM
> Message-id: <1000320062719.ZM3574 at Gochfeld>
> 
>         The following suggestion (presumably tongue-in-cheek):
> 
> "  I'm still doubtful about Roundup's nontoxicity,
> at least until Monsanto's CEO agrees to drink a couple shots."
> 
> may not be so far-fetched.  A famous Rutgers University ag professor
> used to eat a teaspoonful of DDT in front of his class to show how
> harmless it was (on acute exposure).  He died, so the story goes, of a
> bee sting (perhaps that reflects a DDT deficiency).
> 
> In any case, I acute exposure tests in animals (including humans) is not
> likely to be predictive of chronic exposures and/or ecosystem effects.
> 
> M. Gochfeld
>  >>
> 
> I had read about this fellow  sometime after  Rachel Carson's Silent Spring
> became so popular.  I was always curious as to what happened to him.  Now  I'm
> curious as to whether the cemetery he's in has to spray for insect damage.