Most likely there are still seeds in your soil. The plants being dry and brown usually means theyve lived their full lives, gone to seed, and died, unless poison was used.
Even if you did use an herbicide, there are likely still seeds in the soil from previous seasons when this weed went to seed, plus, if any of the plants already had fully grown seeds at the time of application, those seeds could still be live.
To get rid of these you will need to just pull them up repeatedly or poison them repeatedly as they come up. It is a process that takes a long time in either case. I find pulling them by hand every time they come up to be the more effective and much cheaper option
Also: These are already going to seed so try to pull/poison/mow/etc way before they get to this size or this will keep happening
vegetariangardener
some weed seeds can live for decades in the soil. when you pull up root systems, those seeds see the sunlight and wake up.
iandcorey
The soil seed bank is no joke. These have been seeding the soil for a long time. The seeds can wait a decade to sprout.
Your soil is providing the perfect conditions (pH, tilth, drainage) for this particular species. When you killed it all, the soil “needed” cover from sun burn and rain erosion so these covered it.
Replace them with something else that prefers this soil condition or change the soil condition.
metivent
Pigweed is absurdly prolific. A 2-stage treatment is best: (1) topical treatment to kill the existing weeds and (2) pre-emergent treatment for preventing seeds from germinating.
There are some weed killers at the big box stores that contain both. (E.g., Roundup Dual Action)
billyshearslhcb
Are those plants edible?? Asking for my 8 yo self
acmatayvuc
Man, unlimited green supply. In my country we cook them as soup.
AffectionateMap1335
Don’t let them stay long enough to make seeds. Repeat.
1fast_sol
Have you tried tarping the area? A black tarp will bake the ground and seeds underneath it. This may kill some or all the weed seeds. If you are planning on planting other plants here, avoid using herbicides and never use diesel fuel. It may take a while to rid the area of the weeds. Cycle through a month of the tarp, remove it, rake the area and water. Allow the seeds to sprout for about 2 weeks then retarp. Repeat as necessary. The more you “disturb” the ground, the more weed seeds that are being brought to the surface.
pipa-pupu
Fry with potatoes.
isitb33r30yet
Should have tossed out some pre emergent
maddawg56789
Propane torch and burn them.
planetberd
Where I am, a sticker bush is a thorny plant (like blackberries for example), and what you’re showing us is amaranth, which does not have thorns, but is a weedy plant that loves recently disturbed soil.
So it sounds like the sticker bushes you dug up are still gone, and these amaranth sprouted afterwards. The good news is they’re easier to kill than sticker bushes.
blade_torlock
Haver you considered buying or renting a goat.
justtuna
Pigweed will do that.
kristydddd72
I have this problem with stinging nettle. I just cannot get rid of it! Rose of Sharon shoots too, from a tree that was removed 5 years ago!
Idrinkwaterdaily
Seeds of red root pig weed can last for like 40 years their seeds also require light to germinate so digging around there is going to activate lots of buried seeds.
Wytecap
Burning is often done to spark new growth. Congratulations
Use a seed-fertilizing preventer herbacide, like Preen. Do what you did before with the torch and digging up, and then apply Preen as per instructions on the container. Preen lasts about 6 months, depending on how much you apply and other conditions.
tnakd
For science, you should plant some peppermint to see who wins.
dragon_atomic_1
Btw, they look like amaranth.. keep pulling them as they spout and eat some healthy salad or stew.. you may get control on them after a few years!! 😄 Just don’t let those seed pods develop.
Emily_Porn_6969
Guess what ? They have a tap root about 3 feet long . The only way to get rid of is to spray Roundup then just wait about 2 months . The roundup will travel throughout the root system and kill from the bottom up .
I know everyone freaks out about roundup . Use per directions and you will be fine .
HesterMoffett
You can’t just leave bare soil & expect nothing to grow. Seeds are buried & will sprout if there is nothing to stop them.
Dry_Elderberry9832
Plenty of practical advice here so I’ll share some impractical tips: stop trying to dominate and subdue. Listen to and become one with the land and she will bear you whatever you want. Of course, what you want might change
Moist-Clothes8442
Mow them with a bag on. Dump the bag in your garbage or your least favorite neighbors yard.
robert750
I am fighting Greenbriers at the moment. They have tuber clusters, some are 2-3 feet in diameter. I dug up a few and then tried to till them. The tiller worked great for about 2 minutes and then the transmission broke.😮💨
Good luck.
J3General
Nature hates bare ground.
delicate_menace
It’s they’re not their.
Popular_Landscape_52
They’re
GrotAdder
In South Africa, they call it *Umfino*. It’s a staple of the bantu people.
CurrentResident23
Don’t let those stickery bastards discourage you. You can eradicate them with a tarp and time.
Diligent_Brother5120
You just created ideal growing conditions for them
reallyreally1945
Someone planted amaranth in their plot in our community garden about 6 years ago. It was a wonderful curiosity at first, much taller than we expected, but none of us liked the taste so it ended up in the compost heap. It has spread throughout the garden. All of us are constantly pulling its offspring. The roots are 3 or 4 times as long as what you see above ground. One gardener pulled one up and it lifted a cinder block out of his raised bed border. The original planter did the only decent thing he could: sold his house and moved to a different city! His memory lives on and on and on.
Thedream87
You just made them horny
sudda_pappu
This is amaranth imo. (Please validate with others and check plant apps). It’s extremely nutritious when stir fried, tastes great too. It’s also expensive in the US – usually sold in Indian stores and other Asian stores for $4-5 a bunch weighing a pound or something. The seeds are eaten as well as a lot carb substitute for wheat and other carby grains .. considered a superfood. (Called rajgira in hindi?)
Plastic-League7190
take em out to the root, always worked for me back in SoCal when I did landscaping work at my childhood home
TopExperience3424
Burn em again rm43 afterwards you’ll be good to go
JayPlenty24
You aerated the soil and probably created ideal conditions for the seeds already waiting in the soil.
Ok-Row-6088
The only real option you have to win this battle with this much of a seed bank is solarization. You will need to lay a black tarp over this soil for more than a year to completely kill off the plant matter and then start fresh
rupert101
What are you trying to grow there instead? You will need to take active steps to grow something else as well and create a suitable environment for the desired plants.
Nature has a cycle of succession where there is a “final” or climax ecosystem of plants for each bioregion. Every disturbance – chemicals, fire, digging, weeding, mowing restarts the system. Usually the system starts with “weedy” plants which build soil by growing fast and creating lots of plant material. Usually these first successional also do things like fix nutrients and decompact soil. These plants can indicate nutrient deficiencies or issues with soil since they grow in environments they will fix. You could figure out the role of pigweed and either change the soil conditions or grow a different plant that fills the same role. The first phase often allows perennial shrubs to emerge. Next the shrubs shade larger fast growing trees, and finally if no disturbance, a forest is created. At that point the system is stable. This is why agroforestry is becoming popular, because nature wants to create a forest, so if you understand work with nature instead of fighting it, you will have much less work to do.
Lone_GreyWolf
Make sure u dig them out they have shallow surface roots as well as a deep spiking root. So u have to dig the whole root line out or the will regrow right away. Also they need loose soil to grow in. Also if u set up the soil to grow grass, its far less likely the goat head bushes will take over. Fun fact: the spikes goat heads we pull out of our feet, are the seeds.
NameLips
Those fuckers took over my yard this year, never seen them before (Albuquerque).
drcigg
Loads of seeds. Even though you scorched them. They went to seed and it spreads everywhere. You would have had to pull them as sprouts. And likely it would take a few rounds of pulling to get them all out.
When I moved into my other house. I had over 100 feet of fenceline full of weeds 3 feet tall. Everything from burdock, thistle , etc. I worked on that all spring and by summer I finally pulled the last one. After that was done I put in fruit plants and a thick layer of mulch. 5+ inches of mulch and rarely did I ever have to pull weeds. Maybe 30 minutes a month.
RedditVince
Cut those before they seed and burn the tops, they are close to seeding so do it quick!
mbw70
Many years again, the California extension service tested a product on part of our yard to kill these bullhead stickers. They put the branches into jars filled with the test product. That went down to the roots and killed them. I have a hunch it was malathion but don’t know for certain. Thankfully we never tried to grow any crop on that section of yard.
46 Comments
Most likely there are still seeds in your soil. The plants being dry and brown usually means theyve lived their full lives, gone to seed, and died, unless poison was used.
Even if you did use an herbicide, there are likely still seeds in the soil from previous seasons when this weed went to seed, plus, if any of the plants already had fully grown seeds at the time of application, those seeds could still be live.
To get rid of these you will need to just pull them up repeatedly or poison them repeatedly as they come up. It is a process that takes a long time in either case. I find pulling them by hand every time they come up to be the more effective and much cheaper option
Also: These are already going to seed so try to pull/poison/mow/etc way before they get to this size or this will keep happening
some weed seeds can live for decades in the soil. when you pull up root systems, those seeds see the sunlight and wake up.
The soil seed bank is no joke. These have been seeding the soil for a long time. The seeds can wait a decade to sprout.
Your soil is providing the perfect conditions (pH, tilth, drainage) for this particular species. When you killed it all, the soil “needed” cover from sun burn and rain erosion so these covered it.
Replace them with something else that prefers this soil condition or change the soil condition.
Pigweed is absurdly prolific. A 2-stage treatment is best: (1) topical treatment to kill the existing weeds and (2) pre-emergent treatment for preventing seeds from germinating.
There are some weed killers at the big box stores that contain both. (E.g., Roundup Dual Action)
Are those plants edible?? Asking for my 8 yo self
Man, unlimited green supply. In my country we cook them as soup.
Don’t let them stay long enough to make seeds. Repeat.
Have you tried tarping the area? A black tarp will bake the ground and seeds underneath it. This may kill some or all the weed seeds. If you are planning on planting other plants here, avoid using herbicides and never use diesel fuel. It may take a while to rid the area of the weeds. Cycle through a month of the tarp, remove it, rake the area and water. Allow the seeds to sprout for about 2 weeks then retarp. Repeat as necessary. The more you “disturb” the ground, the more weed seeds that are being brought to the surface.
Fry with potatoes.
Should have tossed out some pre emergent
Propane torch and burn them.
Where I am, a sticker bush is a thorny plant (like blackberries for example), and what you’re showing us is amaranth, which does not have thorns, but is a weedy plant that loves recently disturbed soil.
So it sounds like the sticker bushes you dug up are still gone, and these amaranth sprouted afterwards. The good news is they’re easier to kill than sticker bushes.
Haver you considered buying or renting a goat.
Pigweed will do that.
I have this problem with stinging nettle. I just cannot get rid of it! Rose of Sharon shoots too, from a tree that was removed 5 years ago!
Seeds of red root pig weed can last for like 40 years their seeds also require light to germinate so digging around there is going to activate lots of buried seeds.
Burning is often done to spark new growth. Congratulations
I generally use tarps to kill weeds. Comment with my process: [https://www.reddit.com/r/gardening/comments/1n6j3ud/comment/nc1kai5](https://www.reddit.com/r/gardening/comments/1n6j3ud/comment/nc1kai5)
Some weeds are especially persistent though, and can regrow from roots even after being under a tarp for months.
Solarization (clear plastic instead of opaque) during hot weather can roast *some* of the more resilient plants.
[https://extension.umn.edu/planting-and-growing-guides/solarization-occultation](https://extension.umn.edu/planting-and-growing-guides/solarization-occultation)
Use a seed-fertilizing preventer herbacide, like Preen. Do what you did before with the torch and digging up, and then apply Preen as per instructions on the container. Preen lasts about 6 months, depending on how much you apply and other conditions.
For science, you should plant some peppermint to see who wins.
Btw, they look like amaranth.. keep pulling them as they spout and eat some healthy salad or stew.. you may get control on them after a few years!! 😄 Just don’t let those seed pods develop.
Guess what ? They have a tap root about 3 feet long . The only way to get rid of is to spray Roundup then just wait about 2 months . The roundup will travel throughout the root system and kill from the bottom up .
I know everyone freaks out about roundup . Use per directions and you will be fine .
You can’t just leave bare soil & expect nothing to grow. Seeds are buried & will sprout if there is nothing to stop them.
Plenty of practical advice here so I’ll share some impractical tips: stop trying to dominate and subdue. Listen to and become one with the land and she will bear you whatever you want. Of course, what you want might change
Mow them with a bag on. Dump the bag in your garbage or your least favorite neighbors yard.
I am fighting Greenbriers at the moment. They have tuber clusters, some are 2-3 feet in diameter. I dug up a few and then tried to till them. The tiller worked great for about 2 minutes and then the transmission broke.😮💨
Good luck.
Nature hates bare ground.
It’s they’re not their.
They’re
In South Africa, they call it *Umfino*. It’s a staple of the bantu people.
Don’t let those stickery bastards discourage you. You can eradicate them with a tarp and time.
You just created ideal growing conditions for them
Someone planted amaranth in their plot in our community garden about 6 years ago. It was a wonderful curiosity at first, much taller than we expected, but none of us liked the taste so it ended up in the compost heap. It has spread throughout the garden. All of us are constantly pulling its offspring. The roots are 3 or 4 times as long as what you see above ground. One gardener pulled one up and it lifted a cinder block out of his raised bed border. The original planter did the only decent thing he could: sold his house and moved to a different city! His memory lives on and on and on.
You just made them horny
This is amaranth imo. (Please validate with others and check plant apps). It’s extremely nutritious when stir fried, tastes great too. It’s also expensive in the US – usually sold in Indian stores and other Asian stores for $4-5 a bunch weighing a pound or something. The seeds are eaten as well as a lot carb substitute for wheat and other carby grains .. considered a superfood. (Called rajgira in hindi?)
take em out to the root, always worked for me back in SoCal when I did landscaping work at my childhood home
Burn em again rm43 afterwards you’ll be good to go
You aerated the soil and probably created ideal conditions for the seeds already waiting in the soil.
The only real option you have to win this battle with this much of a seed bank is solarization. You will need to lay a black tarp over this soil for more than a year to completely kill off the plant matter and then start fresh
What are you trying to grow there instead? You will need to take active steps to grow something else as well and create a suitable environment for the desired plants.
Nature has a cycle of succession where there is a “final” or climax ecosystem of plants for each bioregion. Every disturbance – chemicals, fire, digging, weeding, mowing restarts the system. Usually the system starts with “weedy” plants which build soil by growing fast and creating lots of plant material. Usually these first successional also do things like fix nutrients and decompact soil. These plants can indicate nutrient deficiencies or issues with soil since they grow in environments they will fix. You could figure out the role of pigweed and either change the soil conditions or grow a different plant that fills the same role. The first phase often allows perennial shrubs to emerge. Next the shrubs shade larger fast growing trees, and finally if no disturbance, a forest is created. At that point the system is stable. This is why agroforestry is becoming popular, because nature wants to create a forest, so if you understand work with nature instead of fighting it, you will have much less work to do.
Make sure u dig them out they have shallow surface roots as well as a deep spiking root. So u have to dig the whole root line out or the will regrow right away. Also they need loose soil to grow in. Also if u set up the soil to grow grass, its far less likely the goat head bushes will take over. Fun fact: the spikes goat heads we pull out of our feet, are the seeds.
Those fuckers took over my yard this year, never seen them before (Albuquerque).
Loads of seeds. Even though you scorched them. They went to seed and it spreads everywhere. You would have had to pull them as sprouts. And likely it would take a few rounds of pulling to get them all out.
When I moved into my other house. I had over 100 feet of fenceline full of weeds 3 feet tall. Everything from burdock, thistle , etc. I worked on that all spring and by summer I finally pulled the last one. After that was done I put in fruit plants and a thick layer of mulch. 5+ inches of mulch and rarely did I ever have to pull weeds. Maybe 30 minutes a month.
Cut those before they seed and burn the tops, they are close to seeding so do it quick!
Many years again, the California extension service tested a product on part of our yard to kill these bullhead stickers. They put the branches into jars filled with the test product. That went down to the roots and killed them. I have a hunch it was malathion but don’t know for certain. Thankfully we never tried to grow any crop on that section of yard.
You have discovered the power of seeds