I take it this is not a dandelion?

I believe what you have is Sow Thistle. It’s like dandelions on steroids. The seed globes get as big as a baseball sometimes. Here’s a link with chemicals listed for it.

Both sow thistle and dandelions are edible. I believe he has dandelions, though.

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Yep, me too.
It looks very similar to what happens to tough broadleaves with fleshy roots (curly dock, burdock, dandelion, plume thistle, musk thistle, bull thistle) after hitting them with herbicides that only pi$$ them off. I’ve burned down those weeds with glyphosate and 2-4D a great number of times, only to find them coming back with more, and stronger growth from the base/rosette.

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Could have been “Canada Thistle”; cutting below the crown doesn’t work on those.

i harvest some early to eat then harvest with a long knife for the chics/ rabbits. they love it and it slows the plants growth. they get cut before they flower. love dandelions! we get huge ones here also. should see the ones near my compost pile. they cant grow in my green mulched rows.

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Every time I pull them my dog looooves to eat the roots. He looks extremely goofy strutting away with a big clump of them in his mouth.

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Nope, I know Canada thistle all too well. I was cutting bull, plume, and musk thistle rosettes.

Ditto! If you work a little each day/week you will soon have the weeds under control. We have eliminated thistles in this same manner.
My only exception is using Avenger on perennial bindweed. Dreaded stuff that creeps from the turf to the blueberries :grimacing:
Avenger is safe to use around plants. Expensive though.

I don’t disagree with manually removing tough weeds. I’ve spent a bunch of hours with a potato fork this spring removing roots and all of thistles, stinging nettles (tough SOB’s they form a “mat” of roots gotta get the entire thing), mother wort, and hoary alyssum from my clover foodplots. I’ve found that total removal of the roots are the best way to deal with those weeds.

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Well about 4 applications and they are finally looking like they are not liking it… Am I just not spraying enough on them? I wet them a bit with the sprayer but don’t try to douse them on the stuff.

Segue… Damn Spectracide; it costs twice as much as it used to, it has half the active ingredient, so the directions ask you to use twice as much… My old bottle had 7.56% 2,4-d, the new bottle, same retail product, has 3.74% 2,4-d.

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Most selective herbicides are contact herbicides, as such wetting as much of the leaf surfaces as possible is required for an effective kill. Are dandelions listed as being a weed killed or controlled on your herbicide label?

Yup, prominently displayed front and center on the picture itself and one of the first named.

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Inflation…no matter how some try to disguise it.

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That’s what I use as a weed killer too, but when I’m serious I add some orange oil.

@Catydid … I sprayed some the other day after mentioning it here…

Just 5% vinegar and dish soap.

Toasted… works really good on a hot sunny day.

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Haha, nice results!

ive tried that but it only burns them and they come back in a week. i think northern weeds are a little tougher than their southern counterparts :wink:

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Vinegar and soap only burn down the top growth, not the roots. At least IME that’s what happens.

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When you kill the top… some will come back… some not. It does take a little while for them to come back here… 2 or 3 weeks.

I think getting hot sun on the vinegar soaked weeds or grass is what makes the kill better.
We have plenty of hot sunny days this year.

I get best results if I spray at 9 or 10 am on a very hot sunny day (low to no wind).

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These can have 14"+ roots and if you leave two inches of root a foot down they come back. I kid you not; it takes about four applications of 2,4-d to kill established ones. A single application barely registers, a second application causes twisted growth but they eventually recover. Three ought to do it but four to play it safe.