Last year (see earlier posts), we reacted much too slowly to the weed problem, and found ourselves facing well-established thistles and mustard thickets well over 6′ tall. This year, I’ve elected to start early with a chemical warfare program, in the hopes of keeping the worst of the thistles, in particular, under some semblance of control.
Two weeks ago, I was foiled by rain, which washed all of a day’s backpack-spraying away with very little to show for it. I had refurbished an old 25-gallon trailer sprayer I found in the barn, but the mini truck couldn’t pull it up the hill, and backing up with it is just too tedious for words.
This weekend, with the kind help of a house guest, we converted it for truck-bed mounting, updated to a new spray wand, and deleted the (not very good) spraybar.
Completely full it’s still a challenge on the steepest part of the climb to the well, but backing up is no trouble, and the wand is much more effective than the old one. Next weekend, we try again.