I tried the boiling water today. It killed the plantain right away, but did not have any apparent effect on the chickweed. That’s okay–chickweed is real easy to pull. The weeds gave off this cooked spinach smell after I soaked them. I was tempted to take a nibble, but I didn’t.
Oh, and does the boiling water kill the roots or just the foliage?
The method I use in my garden is to stay on top of things. I check the garden almost every day, and each day I pull any weeds in a small section. I cover the whole thing about once a week this way, and since the weeds dont have time to get big, they are easy to pull.
Bless TomnDebb, he dug up (pun intended) this thread after I flunked archive searching and gardening…
I’ll have to try the boiling water. Two of my beds I got thoroughly hand-weeded, planted and Preemed; it is working well so far. (Flowers, not veggies/herbs.)
But I really don’t want to use the chemicals on the edibles if at all avoidable. I have the permeable mesh stuff, but I don’t want to use it w/ mulch so close to the house, just for the termite issue.
Anyway, thanks so much for good advice and info, guys. If I get bounteous blooms, succulent tomatoes and healthy herbs, it’ll be due to the Teeming Millions. (And some more hand weeding, probably.)
Veb
How do you suppress weeds?
Take away their right to vote and raise their taxes.
( I’m really surprised no one hasn’t mentioned this before now.)
Green Bean asks:
It depends on where you pour it and for how long, and presumably also on the kind of plant (e.g. how deep its roots are). When I’ve used it recently, it has killed the roots but good, including a several-inch circle of grass around the weed. But I’ve had experiences in the past where I got foliage but no roots.
I think weirddave’s method is likely to be more effective than almost anything else, if you have enough time per square foot, anyway.
I’m surprised boiling water didn’t faze chickweed. (Although I’ve had a heck of a time with poison ivy.) Surely sufficient quantities of it would cook it thoroughly 
Yep, the boiling water trick I mentioned does work well. Some of you who are old enought might remember a product they sold on TV that, I do not make this up, threw a real hot flame on weeds [wonder whatever happened to that?].
RoundUP only effects plants if you can get it to stay on a leaf. It does not effect stems [or doesn’t when i use it] so I might use it around rose stems with weeds growing tight near the base.
Boiling water or RoundUp can be made to be a little more effective if you add a little soap so it stays on a leaf as some leaves have some weird anti water properties. I wonder why that is?