Started clearing the blackberries growing in our yard. FUCK YOU BLACKBERRIES!
I have to ask you, my "friend," are you up for the "fight of your life?"
If so, then you MIGHT win. You will have to address this challenge much like a brand new, unheard of game with an unknown enemy, waiting around every corner, that is impervious to your best weapons, you get few chances to renew your "life/resources," and even though you have an awesome strategy Cheat-guide, it is written in several languages that you can not read.
Otherwise, the blackberries will win this one. Accept that you will lose several bouts in this match and only after about three to five years of determined Ninja style onslaughts will you gain the trophy after defeating the Blackberry Monster, assuming that they are well established after about the same number of years. After three years, they are quite a challenge to remove. Deal with this knowledge, if you are serious, because they will be back. Blackberry bushes (along with all related brambles - fuck, maybe that is why someone named the invasive bastards "brambles.") grow from deep seated, long-lived rhizomes, which can spread for many meters and grow right up through concrete, if you decide to dump a few tons of crap in their way. They will remain completely dormant for years, then suddenly spring up and re-establish themselves, six or eight meters away.
As Callaway mentioned, glyphosate compounds will kill the upper growth, which you can then remove within a day or two (still soft, easy to remove if you wear sleeves. No plant will have any chance of surviving after absorbing glyphosate, if the toxin is introduced to the green parts of the plant during in its active growing stage) Unfortunately, for your most heroic determination evidenced by your choice to use a harsh chemical means to gain ground for the short term battle in an ALL OUT WAR, the plant itself will not transfer any of the toxin to the deep, underground storage rhizomes, which are completely dormant and "not exchanging CO
2 for O
2" or any other definable process that could resemble life, except storing sugars and DNA for the future. Once the environmental conditions are again right for an old rhizome to make it TO the surface, you are once again attacked by these invasive aliens.
The best success I have had at removing brambles was to bushhog (shred, mow or chop down to the ground, by what ever means is available to you) every bit of the plant that I can find. That, of course, stimulates the plant to grow back with extreme numbers of new suckers and many (not quite yet completely dormant) rhizomes jump back into growth. As the invaders begin to show a good establishment of greenery, blast the bastards with glyphosate, which will kill every plant cell that has any fluid connection at all to what is growing back (this first phase with cutting it all down and killing what re-grows takes about three months to complete).
Now that you are this far along, most people will think that they are done - and the fight is over, but this is when the enemy re-groups - this is actually when most people begin to LOSE the War of the Brambles. Now, YOU know what to expect from this invasive tyrant, so you will win!!
You will have to be very strong in your determination, in order to NOT be overwhelmed by the new growth from deep-set rhizomes in the following season. (All you have done so far, is to throw down the gauntlet at your enemy's feet, spit in its face and shake your crotch in its general direction. Your enemy really feels the challenge now, in other words) You have the upper hand, though, because NOW, there are no bloody fucking canes to deal with and the glyphosate toxin will still kick its ass. Then continually tilling the soil and mowing throughout the coming season will keep your advantage (do not stop yet, because you will have at least one more season of re-growth to fight.)
You will win, if you keep up the fight!!
