today was a chicken maintenance day. that means that i cleaned the coop, but also that i let the new flock out for the first official face-to-face meet and greet with lacy and madge.
similar to making a kid’s birthday party and providing really good treats to smooth the path to happy interactions, i sprinkled liberal amounts of mealworms and cracked corn all over the place in hopes that they would mix and mingle. even though in the last few days we’ve had some incidents with puffing up neck feathers and posturing, all went well on our chicken social.
yay!
currently the girls are outside getting some sun and scratching around and just generally being chicken-y. ruby promptly laid an egg (our first white egg layer!), and we are hoping the others will soon follow. i am hoping they will be amenable to all bedding down together tonight, so we’ll see how that goes when it gets dark…
as i was supervising their interaction, however (can you say helicopter mom???), i noticed a super prickly vine-type-thing that sort of snakes across the ground where they were running around. not wanting them to hurt their sweet little chicken tootsies, i went and got some garden snippers.
and that’s when the war broke out.
because i don’t know what kind of sick twisted freak-of-nature species this thorn-endowed thing was, but it was everywhere. the roots went underground for literally feet. the branches went up into other plants. they wound through fences. they choked the life out of each other. they grabbed my coat and my scarf and they made my hands into rivulets of blood. and they didn’t stop. just when i thought i had reached the end of the crop, i would find another clump.
this was like a horror show, but for real.
this was like the stuff you watch a show about- in fact, the stuff i would watch a show about, and then blog about: hey, i just watched this totally creepy documentary about this killer plant that tries to take over the world by making anything it comes in contact with bleed to death! for real!
so i spent an inordinate amount of time outside in this jungle that should have been, by all rights, somewhere far far away where it had to fight for survival against really harsh odds- not sitting on the side of my house next to my peaceful bamboo.
first we had the dire warnings about morning glory- which apparently if you are someone who is “in the know” about plants ( i am clearly not) you are virulently against and it makes you want to- and i am totally serious here- jump out of your seat and run outside and RIP IT OUT RIGHT NOW!!!! (i had several friends get visibly agitated when they looked out of my window and saw morning glory in one spot or another in my yard. they went from calm and serene to full-on banshee mode in a nano-second. it was somewhat alarming. but i think that plant people get it…). so, morning glory is the enemy of all things living, but i am told you can buy seeds for it in stores here. i am also told that it will kill everything in its path and that there is basically no way to stop it. once it makes an appearance you just have to eternally rip it out forever and ever and keep it at bay. i kind of thought maybe we could let the morning glory choke all of our bushes and then we could just torch all of the morning glory and then start over from scratch and plant vegetables and maybe a few fruit trees- but people were horrified when i suggested this, so i guess it’s not such a great idea…
but now, the plague of the thorny madness has reared its frightening head, and i’m wondering what it is about seattle that engenders these monster plants? seattle is this totally laid-back chill-vibey place- so why does the foliage bulk up on steroids and want to wipe us out? it’s like the more mellow the people are, the more scary the plant-life is.
why is it that plants we want don’t grow cojones and spread like wildfire? ‘cuz i could get on board with going outside one day and finding, say, a field of strawberries that wouldn’t die. or a really healthy vigorous cherry tree.
it’s lucky that i have joel salatin’s voice in my head talking about the importance of healthy soil, or i would have seriously considered pouring something very very toxic onto the roots of those thorny behemoths.
ok, who are we kidding? i did seriously consider pouring something very toxic onto those roots- you know those stumps that are left in the ground? the ones that you can’t pull up, and can’t dig up? the ones that you know are gonna sprout the same darn plant you just spent however long trying to gouge out of the ground? well, i will confess that gasoline seemed awfully tempting as a cure-for-what-ailed me at that particular moment…
but, i didn’t get down and dirty. i just sat there and bled and channeled my inner phil/pheel.
and then i chopped up all of those pointy pokey horrible thorny things so they would fit in my seattle-approved yard waste container and i took my defeated-yet-not-defeated self into the house to blog.
cheap therapy.
thanks for listening.
and by the way- do you have any idea how to get rid of these plants??????????????
Feb 10, 2013 @ 13:48:02
I would venture 1 word of caution–it might be worth finding out what something is before getting too engaged with it–poison ivy spreads like that, too, something I learned the hard way!
Feb 10, 2013 @ 13:57:52
I would take a sample of the plant to your local Agricultural Extension Office (probably a County thing) and ask them. But beware, if they have detectors at the entrance, you may end up in Gitmo wearing an orange jump suit for bringing a plant of mass destruction inside a government building.
I’ll bet they have all kinds of free literature there, so bring a backpack.
A sure way to kill a root system is to put a tablespoon of diesel fuel on the stump. But after it dies, I would suggest digging out all contaminated soil and run it through the compost pile. Because diesel will prevent anything growing there for a very long time. Yes, anything which used to be alive can be composted, even diesel fuel. Hydrocarbon, so it counts as “brown stuff” in the recipe. (As opposed to “green stuff” which is nitrogen.) You’ll have to fence that part off to keep the chickens out.
Did you know chickens will eat slugs? I know Seattle has lots of slugs. When I was a kid in Edmonds my father used to pay me a penny for ordinary slugs and a nickle for the big green ones which i harvested from our suburban house land.
Feb 10, 2013 @ 14:38:28
Maybe it is a blackberry bush. I had some of those in my old yard and they just kind of spring up everywhere and they are tough to get rid of. And when you say morning glory do you mean bindweed? I grew up calling this weed morning glory and later find out that it is actually called bindweed. Quite different than the kind you buy as seeds from the store. And yes morning glory/bindweed is horrific to get rid of, it’s seeds can be stored up to 20 years in the ground.
Feb 10, 2013 @ 15:32:24
Is it wild blackberry cane? Just cut it back every year – that should keep it pretty tame. It’s very pokey. You need leather gardening gloves and a good pair of long-handled garden snips.
Morning glory actually seems to love being torched. Mark did this once to get rid of some of ours and it had it’s best year ever after recovering from that. Yeah. Pretty much pull out whatever you can find and DON’T COMPOST IT. Put it in your garbage in a garbage bag tied shut. It can resprout from pretty much any part of the plant.
If you can get it before it flowers, that’s for the best as at least then you won’t be spreading more seed. You can focus on contending with the roots.
Feb 10, 2013 @ 16:18:54
In Seattle, vines with nasty thorns = blackberries; probably Himalayan blackberries. They are an import, and have few enemies. The seeds get spread by birds & squirrels, so they can start coming up anywhere. They are very invasive. Dig them up at the roots and just keep at it to starve them to death, or get goats (who will eat them). Seattle has such a mild climate with so much moisture that plants don’t get beaten back by the cold of winter or heat of summer, so they just go bonkers and take over.
Feb 10, 2013 @ 17:08:46
I don’t know what it is or how to get rid of it but please buy yourself a good pair of gardening gloves!
Love from a former student across the ocean who thinks of you often and enjoys your blog
Feb 10, 2013 @ 19:32:57
If you were in the southern part of the country, from the Atlantic coast westward at least through Texas, I’d say the plant is kudzu. Sorta glossy green leaves and thorny stems. I fight a never ending battle with it and honeysuckle, with a bit of poison ivy here and there. It is a wicked combination of nuisance plants for sure!
Feb 10, 2013 @ 20:41:27
Still struggling here with the white mulberry, a very invasive plant.
Feb 11, 2013 @ 01:34:38
Um…Morning Glory vines don’t have thorns. There is no pain involved in ripping them out. But they do wrap themselves around everything, including garden furniture if you let them (which is why they’re also called “bindweed”). The do produce a lovely, white flower in the summer, though!
Blackberry vines have *huge* thorns…and also spread like wildfire here in Western Washington. You CAN get rid of them, but you MUST get at the main rootball, which can take some time to locate. But it can be done: I have the negative space in my back yard where once, many years ago, a blackberry “monster” dwelt. They do produce lovely, juicy berries, though!
As for the “why” of Western Washington’s “monster” plants and vines: the climate, m’dear, the climate! Our lush, wet, Maritime climate!
Feb 11, 2013 @ 01:40:42
From Washingtin State Univeristy:
http://lakewhatcom.wsu.edu/gardenkit/UnWantedPests/Blackberry.htm
Feb 11, 2013 @ 01:41:46
Oops: “Washington” State University (iPad gremlins strike again!)
Feb 13, 2013 @ 00:12:48
Boiling water deals nicely to anything green in the wrong place but you do need to keep at it for a while.
We have convolvulus/bindweed/granny hop out of bed in our garden too but very little now as hubby went on a vendetta last year. He can now spot a root at a hundred paces
viv in nz
Feb 13, 2013 @ 08:27:14
can we hire him and his boiling water pot????
Feb 13, 2013 @ 08:39:45
love back! i’m glad to see you here, and i’m glad you’re enjoying the blog!