The Japanese Knotweed has been sprouting up again, and since it rained heavily over the last couple of days I decided it would be an ideal time to pull it up while the ground was soft.
Pulling is a organic permaculture approach to eradicating this invasive weed. The plant reproduces by root disturbance, so no digging should be done, just a clean pull, bag up the plant and burn. Extreme care must be taken not to break or spread the plant fragments around as they can easily grow into new plants.
The mainstream method of eradication is to spray and inject yearly with roundup, however this is such a toxic chemical I don't want it used anywhere near where food is grown, or even on the land at all!
I have done this several times per year over the last few years, and every year the plant looks less and less healthy, there are only 2 main patches remaining. Each location I pull up a plant from I mark with spray paint. This probably isn't very organic either, and costs money each time, so I'm thinking of marking with steaks next time. It is interesting seeing the marked patches from previous pulling sessions as patches with no plant regrowth gives a good indication of progress!
