Nettles .......... how can I get rid of them without killing everything else ?

[tiredandnowty]

Have tried hacking at them, have tried digging up, am now ready to resort to weedkiller of some sort, but don't really want to kill everythign else around the edge of my garden in France.

Help please !!!! Dreading DD (22 months) falling into them while chasing chickens !!

Glyphosate (roundup) weedkiller will only kill on contact, but is very good. Just don'e spray it on anything you want to keep.

Umm, the trouble with weedkillers is that they will always kill something else. They're just not eco-friendly.

Keep digging them up .. and teach dd the perils of nettles! She's not too young, and once bitten ....

You'd need to do some research, but lots of plants have aversions to other plants .. maybe there's something you could plant nearby which would reduce their numbers? Obviously, nettles need a certain chemical balance in the soil in order to thrive. I don't have any in my garden, for instance .. but that's luck, not knowledge.

For what it's worth, ds is now 3.6, and he won't go near nettles, having been stung once or twice!

Eco-friendly methods are fine, but it depends on your tolerance level for the weed. If you absolutely want rid of all your nettles, then you will have to use a good systemic herbicide like glyphosate. It will only kill green tissue that it comes in contact with. You can get types which you paint on, of you can use a guard on your sprayer to stop it drifting onto the plants you want.
In commercial horticulture it is used right next to crop plants, but as a carefully shielded and directed spray so that nothing is harmed other than the target weeds.
Nettles have a pretty strong root sytem, and can start growing back from any bits of root that are left, so to dig them out you will have to be very careful to get all the root out. Alternatively, cut them off at ground level (or burn them off using a flame thrower). If you keep doing this fanatically every two to three weeks then eventually you will exhaust the energy stored in the root system and the plants will become weeker and eventually not grow back. It's a lot of work though, and you will have to keep at it.
Or you could make sure you have dock leaves growing nearby and teach ds how to use them .

Sorry, dd.

Digging doesn't work on nettles unfortunately. Glyphosphate is definately the way to go - and the most eco friendly of the weedkillers. Every year my neighbours badly tended garden sends nettles and ivy through our fence. You can spray, or paint on a glyphosphate weedkiller, when it's not due to rain for 24 hours at least, it doesn't get on teh soil (if you are careful) but just goes down teh leaves into the root of the plant and after a couple of weeks you pull up the dead plants and they don't re-grow

It's de-activated on contact with soil, you don't need to worry about that.
When it was firts released onto the market, it's developer (to show how harmless to people it was) dipped a banana into glyphosate solution then ate it. NOT to be confused with paraquat - the most popular form of suicide in Japan because of the agonising death it causes, apparently. See what gems they teach you at agricultural college!

Oh thanks Girders - I'll be a bit more free and easy wth it next time. Though my nettles do come up every year at about the same time and place as my hollyhock seedlings, so i have to be careful to make sure I don't inadvertently detroy them. They self seed so prolifically though I don't suppose it matters if I kill off a few

Mine root in from under a fence kerry.

Oh that's my party trick kerry - taught to me by an old adopted grandma - If you do literaly "grasp the nettle" - realy really firmly, you crush all the hairs that cause the sting and don't get stung. The kids love watching me do it, but won't try it themselves

Stick some plastic cups or something over your hollyhock seedlings if they're small enough. plastic carrier bag, whatever. Skoosh your nettles, then wait ten minutes or so for all the spray to settle (the smallest drops will be invisible and hang around for several minutes) then take your hollyhock protectors off.
Voila - dead nettles.

My word, thanks ladies for all your advice. I definitely can't go for the dgging up option as I'd end up with a moat !!!!!! Think I'll have to get a few barrels full of roundup and try that. Don't suppose you know if it is safe to use near chickens ??

There will be info on the packaging, but personally, I'd shut them in while I was doing it, and leave them in for a while until the spray was completely dry.