Here’s the long awaited dandelion shoehorn. Our back lawn is now known as the DMZ: Dandelion Massacre Zone.

When it arrived we eagerly ripped off the packaging. Try as we might (and, to be honest, we didn’t try particularly hard) we couldn’t help but hold it — brandish it, even — like a Star Wars light sabre. It wasn’t too bad at uprooting dandelions either, although it helps if the soil has at least a little moisture; over-enthusiastic handling when the tool is half buried in dry soil may result in minor bends and deformities. Still, it looks more battle-hardened now. The dandelions, by the way, are not looking too happy. We shall return to the fray early next week.

It’s war: the dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) is about to be obliterated from our back lawn.

Of course, when I say ‘the’ dandelion I don’t mean there’s just one monster-sized one out there. No, I’m referring to it generically. But I think ‘the’ dandelion (and all its persistent offspring) understand that.

We fired the first few warning shots across our dandelions’ bows this morning. By next week, when reinforcements arrive and our horticultural troops are fully mobilised, those weeds won’t stand a chance. If there was ever a good time for a weed to accelerate its evolution and grow legs and scarper, now is it.

Instead of just picking them off one by one, we’ve decided to do the job properly by wrenching out the taproots. Today, we used a twelve-inch long screwdriver (and a Phillips one, too — hardly the most suitable type) to drive down below the roots and loosen the soil. Just yanking at the leaves is less than useless, as most of the root, which is the plant’s food store, breaks off and stays in the ground.

“If anybody asks what we’re doing,” I said, “we’ll say we’re unscrewing the dandelions.”
“!” said Shana, and pounced on another large dandelion rosette.

We could have used a systemic weedkiller, but we don’t like chemicals. Other dedicated dandelion weeding tools are available, but, looking at some of the specs, we decided they were mostly on the short side. Another tool has a long handle: all you have to do is push it in the ground, twist and lift. But, bearing in mind that a lot of dandelion roots are quite firmly anchored and also grow inconveniently sideways rather than straight down, we weren’t convinced that would be much better.

What we needed, we agreed, was something long — at least a foot long — and strong, preferably metallic, and with a curved profile rather than being dead straight. Shana first suggested a gouge chisel but could find none long enough. Eventually we hit upon the ideal solution: a shoe horn! Five minutes, and one flurry of eBay hunting, later, and a two-foot-long steel shoe horn is on its way to us. And, appropriately, it’s coming from somewhere in Manchester called Wellington Street. That should help us to stamp out those dandelions once and for all.