Grampa's Weeder!
Every spring, they begin to shoot up their laughing yellow flowers. And yes, they're laughing--at you, you sap. They are the Dandelions (T. officinale). They have been lurking all winter just beneath the surface, waiting for the perfect opportunity to burst forth and expose you as a slovenly yardsman. And then, and then, they add insult to injury by forming those irresistible seed-heads--thereby insidiously recruiting generations of children for their nefarious self-propagating purposes.
Spray all you want, they'll just laugh it off. Pull at the stalk, and the leaves will come off but the root will remain. Carefully remove each flower by hand, they'll just send up more.
Enter the elegant "Grampa's Weeder," which I've used with glee for the past couple of years. It's an ingenious device that grabs the dandelion taproot a couple of inches below the surface, and extracts the entire plant ("plant," he says--more like demon weed, though still second to Virginia Buttonweed). I can easily fill a five-gallon bucket with Dandelion carcasses, laughing maniacally the whole time.
The tide in my yard has shifted in my favor, but this is a long war.
(and yes, I know that the weed is actually perfectly edible and in fact quite nutritious. I do not care.)
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