Crown Vetch Poisoning

Hi this is Yolanda Vanveen and in this segment we are going to talk about crown vetch poisoning. Now vetch is a beautiful plant and it's been used for many years for soil erosion. And so it's become an invasive weed in many areas because it's just taken over. Because it's a vine related to legumes related to any type of bean and it really takes over areas. So the problem is that it will take over the lawn, the plants, the forest, everywhere and it's become an invasive weed with lots of problems. So there's many ways that you can get rid of it. But it's kind of difficult because it does really get thick and the roots are really, really thick. So the easiest way that I have found to poison your crown vetch is to cover it up. Either put newspapers over it or a bunch of compost over it. Or many people are using their corn gluten meal and that actually will make it die back too because it just suffocates it. And so my trick with any weeds is to cover it with compost and reseed it if it's in your lawn. Just use lots of regular grass seed. Because whatever you are using to kill that crown vetch it will eventually need something to replace it so putting grass seed in there is going to help a lot. Rubbing alcohol works, vinegar works, bleach works but you only want to use a little bit at the base of the plant. Now there's many, many chemicals that are used to kill crown vetch whenever they are really taking over but there's been all these problems now with all of the herbicides because many of them have toxins that are really bad for pregnant women. And so even in small doses they are realizing they are a problem. Now there's a chemical called two four Damine and that's really used because it kills the crown vetch right as it comes up. It maybe banned in the United States because it's just so toxic. So I have come to the conclusion that you can use boiling water, vinegar or bleach or cover it up with compost, or corn gluten meal and those are much better choices then any weed killer out there.