It will probably not come as a surprise to anybody that I’m not afan of pesticides. Homes that have their lawns regularly treated with pesticides have much higher rates of cancer for their pets and children, and I’m not the sort of person to be overly concerned with having a perfect lawn anyway.
I don’t even mind a few dandelions. They were custom made for children, after all. They color your skin yellow, they are so plentiful that nobody minds if you pick theirs, they can be made into crowns, they’re edible and they magically change into fluffy delights that you can make wishes on! What better flower could possibly exist for a child?
When our dandelions start to outnumber the blades of grass or when thistles creep in, I put my foot down though. That’s when I enlist my dandelion loving children to help me out.
I arm them with trowels and various weed-fighting tools and pay them 5 cents a root for dandelions and 10 cents a root for thistles.
I ended up paying out $6.20 for two full buckets of defeated weeds, roots and all. I imagine they will spend it on more flowers for their gardens.
It was well worth it.
Price for paying kids to weed the lawn on a spring afternoon – $6.20.
Getting to kick back on the lawn swing and take it all in – priceless. 🙂
(Purple toes courtesy of Annalee, resident pedicurist, like it or not.)
Great idea…
This is a great idea! If only I could get my daughter to bring me the roots as well. ;o)
K
Did you cook them afterward? Or make coffee from the roots? 😀
And I *love* the purple toes. 😉
Cooking the dandelions
Nope! We have in the past and it was a pretty dismal failure. 🙂 Annalee was the only brave soul who ate more than a bite, and even she gave up pretty quickly. We picked the young, new leaves so they wouldn’t be as bitter but they were still quite bitter! Maybe I need to use tiny amounts in a salad or something…
And thank you! I’ll tell my pedicurist! 🙂