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Call the Dandelion police! Is there a 911 number for it? My word! How we have become so brainwashed about having pristine manicured lawns that give us either the grand manor look or the country club look.
Personally I happen to like dandelions. They are harbingers of spring! You can go out and harvest the leaves and cook up a mess of dandelion greens because it is considered the best way to build up the blood. Did you know that dandelion greens are more nutritious than even spinach because they are loaded with high amounts of vitamins A and C, and contain impressive levels of iron, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and copper? All that good stuff is the main reason organic gardeners love to throw dandelions in their compost mix.
The juice of the plant is still used in the treatment of diabetes by herbalists. I remember during WWII our country cultivated dandelions for the latex extracted from the roots to make rubber. To me those lovely little yellow flowers give a perkiness to a lawn and they really do not get to full height and turn into those magic, fluffy white balls that we children picked and blew away to see them waft over the gentle summer breezes of our childhood.
Come on now how many of you remember the first bouquet you ever picked to give to your mom? Chances are they were a bouquet of Dandelions!
Yet I know they are pesky perennial plants and have roots that would take Arnold Schwarzenegger to pull out.
If at this point I have not convinced you to leave those dandelions be then I suggest some of the following simple solutions for those lawn people who want to solve the problem organically.
The first and simplest one is “mow them down” and mow them down often because keeping them cut keeps those bright yellow heads from peeking up through your green grass and offending the eye or from growing tall enough to germinate and get those lovely little puff balls from blowing all over your lawn and giving you more of them.
Next tip is to dig them out. You cannot pull them out by the roots as they simply break off at ground level, so you have to get down on your hands and knees and dig them out making sure you have their long tap root.
For those of you who are not water conscious or who do not live in a water ban area and have excess gas or electric to burn then boil kettles of water and pour boiling water on them. That will do the trick as you will be able to see in about three days.
I personally do a lot of weed control with the cheapest gallon jugs of vinegar I can buy at my local food market. That does the trick for me. Use just plain distilled vinegar, not the apple cider kind and simply pour it on the dandelion or any other weed you are trying to control.
If you are really gung ho about these pesky plants then cut little pieces of cardboard and put it on top of the dandelion and weigh it down with a rock because lack of sun will kill them. Of course your neighbors will think you are crazy and your lawn will like weird.
I recently read that the Iowa State University had developed a weed killer that was made of corn meal gluten and it is supposed to kill the weed at the roots but must be applied four to six weeks before the weeds germinate and frankly that is too much work for me so you can figure out by now that I really am on the side of the lowly Dandelion and those of you who have Dandelion nightmares might use some of my suggestions above.
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Author Bio Box: Arlene Wright Correll
 For more gardening or cooking information click http://www.learn-america.com/
To see Arlene’s Gardens and to read her gardening diaries and to take a walk through her pictorial garden or click on Arlene’s Books where you can download or buy her gardening & cook books, including her new book, “The ABC’s of Wine and Beer Making”. Remember to check out her artwork, especially of her fruits and vegetables. Arlene says, “All my royalties from the sale of my books go to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and I thank you for visiting my site.”
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