Now (early September) we are at the point I was hoping we’d be at in Early August. There are a few plants (mostly thistle) that have sprouted from seed since we sprayed, and a few spots we missed spraying (did I mention that we ran out of dye one day?) The sprayer is powered by the tractor alternator now, and it only took 10 gallons of dilute glyphosate to spray anything green left in the acre – about an hour’s project.
Here you can see how the dye works to see what you’ve sprayed:
This crabgrass was sprayed a couple weeks before, but you can see the blue halo from the dye. Dripped on concrete, hands or clothes, you get an impressive stain from the dye. But a couple weeks in the sun, a couple days of handwashing, or a single laundry round sets all right again. The vegetable dye is visible when sprayed, and then it fades.
We’ll keep spot spraying until the end of October, then allow the glyphosate to dissipate during November (and over the winter).
Next: Harrowing