Dandelions

Love me, Love me not.

Here a couple of good reasons to love the dandelion.

• It’s flower has a beautiful shade of yellow
• They send down a long tap root which helps the soil absorb water and reduces runoff.
• When the dandelion dies, this tap root decays, loosens our clay soil and leaves behind a nice pocket of minerals.
• Dandelions attract beneficial ladybugs who eat aphids.  This is good.  Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides.
• Dandelions add calcium to the soil.  “When the soil is low in available calcium, and there is calcium in reserve, dandelions digest the calcium from unavailable to available.  If there is no calcium in reserve then the weedy grasses thrive.”  Pure Prairie Organics.
• If you harvest them before the bloom, they make a nice salad.
• It's said that if you can blow all the seeds off with one blow, then you are loved with a passionate love.  Now that’s a good reason to have a yard full of fuzzy seed heads – just so we have enough to find passionate love.

Aside from pulling out the root, there is no effective organic way to kill a dandelion.  You can spray them with vinegar.  This will slow them down but it will also cause brown spots where ever you spray it.  This is best in areas where you want to kill everything -- like in between pavers.   

But if you must control your dandelions, it is best to spot treat them with a spray.  Try to avoid the granular broad leaf weed killer that you spread over your entire lawn. 

You can get more information about “Dealing with Dandelions” at the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides website:  http://www.pesticide.org/dandelions.html.