I found this weed or plant growing all over my backyard and it wont go away. I keep pulling it but it keeps growing back. The pictures are of the weed growing behind my garage. It is over 5 ft tall and has red stalks coming out of the ground. It also has green berries that turn purple on it. I think its Polkweed but I am not sure. I read that it is highly poisonous and I really want to get rid of it. Could you please tell me what this is and how I can get rid of it.
Pokeweed, Phytolacca americana. Chain saw, maybe?---if nothing else, remove berries/seeds to keep the plant from reproducing itself. Remove the whole plant if you can: in a fairly short time it will develop a taproot and be even more difficult to eliminate.
ditto. at a minimum, get rid of the 'berries' right now! and dig up the whole thing - just cutting it off, even at ground level, will only hold it back some; not get rid of it. durn things keep growing and growing and growing...gotta dig it out to really get rid of it...
The black berries can be made to make black/purple paint die. So be carful not to smush any berries on you. They are hard to get rid of but just keep wacking em down. :)
Is this really poisonous? My (Chinese) dad has this all over his garden and he tends to grow food plants.
in this area, Arkansas, some folks use the young shoots to make a dish called "poke salad", see the www for recipes I prepared it once just to see what it tastes like, I used a spinach recipe I keep at least one plant for the birds - some like the berries, I have seen mocking birds feeding on them
It is dangerous, it is poisonous. But people do cultivate it for poke shoots to eat in the springtime. You would have to know how to prepare it, not difficult, but it is more involved than the way we would eat lettuce or green beans.
A friend of mine one ate 1 berry daily(NOT Recommended)as a Tonic. He's 58 and still kicking, so I think the toxicity is a bit overblown. I've eaten the greens in Spring and they are at least as good as Spinach.
My grandma used to make a heavenly rhubarb pie. As we know, some parts of this plant are toxic---some are not. Knowledge is Power!
