Salt Lake City Enlisting Public To Help Clear Goathead Weeds At Pancakes And Puncturevine Power Pull
Sep 6, 2018, 3:09 PM | Updated: Sep 7, 2018, 11:22 am
Photo: Laura Seitz, Deseret News
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Gardening is one of the favorite pastimes among Utahns. So, if you love to pull weeds, Salt Lake City needs your help this Saturday along the Jordan River Parkway.
If you bike or walk your dog along the Jordan River Parkway, you’ve probably run into the weed goathead, also known as puncturevine. It got that name because the spiny seeds can puncture a tire.
“As a city, we pull them as much as we can,” said Scott Granger, who supervises trails and natural lands for the city — and pulls plenty of puncturevine.
Saturday morning, the city is holding a friendly competition called Pancakes and Puncturevine to get rid of as much as they can pull in several hours.
“It’s hard to get rid of,” said Granger. “Dogs walk through it. It gets stuck in their pads.”
The sharp goathead seeds are painful and even problematic if they cause an infection. The city gets plenty of complaints from cyclists, too.
“I pulled 67 thorns out of my front tire one time,” said Michael, who often rides his bike on the Jordan River Parkway Trail. He said the goathead is a persistent problem, and he’s happy about any plan to get rid of it.
“Anything will pick that seed up,” said Granger. “That seed sticks to everything. And it hurts. It’s just a nuisance. It grows fast. The hotter it gets the quicker he grows.”
At last year’s Pancakes and Puncturevine, volunteers uprooted 585 pounds to fill 59 bags of the noxious weed.
“Places we were at last year that were just horrible, it’s better now,” he said.
The pulling starts Saturday at 9 a.m. at Jordan Park in Salt Lake City, 1000 West and 900 South. To sign up, and for more information, go to signupgenius.com/go/30e044ca9a72aaafd0-pancakes1.
