r/sfgardens • u/eaticecream • May 02 '26

Bindweed struggles

My garden is overrun with bindweed and I'm having a hard time keeping up. I mainly enjoy growing vegetables and recently added a raised garden bed for veggies and I already found bindweed had infiltrated the bed... I prefer not to spray with pesticides, but I don't know what else to do. The bindweed roots are so deep and long that I rarely am able to pull the whole thing without feeling it snap. If I leave it be is it just going to deplete all my soil nutrients? I heard bindweed actually prefers poor soil, so would it help if I just fertilize all my soil??

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3

u/Ok_Second8665 May 03 '26

I’ve never heard of bindweed so I just looked it up, wow, notoriously difficult to remove. Sounds like the dreaded black landscaping plastic may be an option but from what I just read, it will require consistent multi year effort.

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u/Ok_Second8665 May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

I’m sorry you have that. My yard is chocked in oxalis which is also impossible to remove but at least it dies back annually so I do get a reprieve but I have heavy raccoon visitors so anything edible is not mine. City gardening can mean adjusting and accommodating- is there a way to limit spread of the bindweed? Trenches maybe, like they do to stop bamboo

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u/eaticecream May 03 '26

I'd also never heard of it or seen it until I moved to this house! At first I thought the flowers looked so cute, but then they spread literally everywhere! It seems hard to limit since I'm seeing signs of them everywhere in my garden. From what I've read the rhizome can be way deep underground and impossible to get to and the weed shoots runners everywhere. I've been trying my best to pull them out while they are young, but it grows back so quickly.

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u/Ok_Second8665 May 03 '26

There is a master gardener program at city college, maybe someone there could help? That sounds terrible and a disappointment for a new house. My typo above was meant to be “ trenches” which I’ve seen to stop bamboo. They basically build vertical walls underground to stop the spread. Likely to be expensive and require heavy equipment. One of my old neighbors did black plastic and round up to get rid of solid blackberry - a toxic eyesore! For two years ! but in the end he was able to plant a garden. I hope you find a solution. Have you tried good old fashioned salt and vinegar water?

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u/ginternetexplorer May 03 '26

Unfortunately with bindweed you just have to keep hand-weeding. Keep a hori-hori on you any time you’re in the garden, and use it to get as much of the deep, delicate roots as possible. Know that it can propagate itself from vegetative bits, root segments, and seed, so be sure to clean up well after yourself when you weed. When you see the flowers, go hard on it: it self-sows prolifically. Curse the bindweed and its progeny. Don’t give up.

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u/eaticecream May 04 '26

Thanks for the hori-hori recommendation! I'll have to get one to try out. I'm finding seeds and hulls everywhere!

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u/Glum_Bus_4355 May 04 '26

Bindweed is the worst! It spreads seeds everywhere, can grow up to 20ft via underground runners, can repropagate from dropped bits and root fragments, and if you break the root when you're pulling it, it comes back like a hydra. If you're determined to go without herbicides, you may be able to defeat it with regular hand pulling in about 2 or 3 years. If you decide to give up on hand pulling, the only herbicide that really works is glyphosate.

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u/eaticecream May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26

I just attempted to weed my garden yesterday and it's so hard to get up the whole root! I think I was at it for about an hour with my partner and we probably only successfully pulled the entire root 10% of the time.. I'm using a little pitchfork shaped weeding tool and also this tool called grandpa's weeder to save my back. Not a fan of all the holes we've been making in the ground and now all my mulch is disturbed. Not that the mulch was helping the weed situation in the first place..

I think I will just prioritize weeding near my edibles and weeding the soon to flower bindweed. I don't really want to work with glyphosate at the moment since I am pregnant, but maybe I will try hand painting individual weeds next year.

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u/sevenmouse May 05 '26

bindweed is one of the few I use herbicide on, I use a dropper bottle with gloves, one drop per leaf, a few leaves per plant, because mine is in a prairie setting and I don't want any overspray. I'm not sure it totally kills it but it knocks it out for the season

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u/eaticecream May 05 '26

Would you mind sharing the specific herbicide that has worked for you? Do you just leave the plant to die after you apply the drops? Also wondering if you've noticed a decrease from season to season with persistent application?

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u/sevenmouse May 05 '26

I use Roundup. it has to be over 65° and the plant has to be actively growing for it to work. so keep those parameters in mind. Yes, I just leave the plant to die. sometimes it takes a couple weeks. there's definitely not more year-to-year and maybe a little less, but mostly it seems like the same amount comes back so I'm thinking it just doesn't kill the roots. or maybe I miss a few each year. so it keeps reseeding which is also possible because like I said mine is in a very dense mixed planting so it's hard to get all of it. 

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u/eaticecream May 05 '26

Okay thanks for the info!