least-toxic controls policy

[Debra Baker]

Instead of flamers, you can use hot , almost boiling,
water(when kids are out of school). This works well
for the weeds in sidewalk cracks. Grass type weeds can
be sheet mulched no matter how tall, just stomp them
flat first and use newspaper or cardboard under the
wood chips. Mowing, using a weed wacker works well.
Our county seems to sucessfully gotten rid of poisen
use on the side of the road weeds, they now mow. Since
they have so much roadside to cover, they use a
special mower that mows brush and small tree branches
as well as regular weeds. It looks like a large mens
electric shaver head mounted on an arm coming from the
bed of the pick up truck. I live in rural Santa Cruz
county, you could ask our raod maint people more about
this.

Debi
--- EWerb at aol.com wrote:
> i got this message from someone working with local
> schools to cut back on 
> poison use around schools, certainly a good place to
> start...what group-mind 
> thoughts might we offer?...
> 
> ew
> 
> Anyone have suggestions for weed abatement around
> schools?  Weeds seem to be 
> the worst "pest" to solve.......and Roundup is the
> easiest thing to use.  
> Our 2 reps to the committee implementing the
> least-toxic pest control policy 
> at Ventura Unified are being ganged up on to put a
> herbicide on the 
> "acceptable use list". We don't want to, but have to
> counter with a potential 
> solution that's effective & cheap. Phil Boise (from
> SB) is the consultant on 
> this and has done a good job problem solving other
> pests but could he be 
> overlooking something? Something experimental that
> shows promise?
> Some mechanical means have been ruled out. (ie.
> Flamers have too much 
> liabilty for use).  The BIGGEST problem is a weed
> problem that got out of 
> hand while they were hammering out the list of
> acceptable controls. Too late 
> for mulch?!
> Ideas?
> -Deborah


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