Vinegar for weed control

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wahoowad

wahoowad

Minister of Fire
Hearth Supporter
Dec 19, 2005
1,677
Virginia
With our new puppy the ol’ lady is clamping down on my weed control. I get weeds and grass growing non-stop in our gravel driveway and around the backyard fence line and usually I mix up a few gallons of weed killer and spray them down about once a month.

At her request I did a small test of 100% vinegar and a lot of the weeds have started to turn brown after a couple days. I can’t tell yet if it just turned the foliage brown or if it’s actually killing the weed so it may take another couple weeks to see if this is going to be a good alternative to chemicals.

I’m curious if anybody else has switched to vinegar and if it requires 100% or if I can dilute it any?
 
Plenty of places advocate for vinegar, dish detergent and salt to kill young weeds (one link - there are plenty if you google it). However, it won't really kill more mature weeds. I've tried it, and didn't have much success - maybe because some of the action also requires bright sun to help it work.

Bleach can also kill weeds, as can baking soda or salt. But, be aware that any of these solutions can kill everything it is applied to, and have negative health and/or local environmental consequences (although not as bad as labeled poisons).
 
If you really want to hammer it you can get "industrial" and "cleaning" grade vinegar at 30-45% strength, which is upwards of 10x stronger than food grade regular. More expensive but strength for strength it's about the same value. Whatever caustic household DIY products you use be careful not to apply them anywhere you might intend to grow anything (lawn/landscaping) in the future, including areas immediately down slope from where you'll be applying.
 
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I've not had any luck with any of the natural weed control recipes...heck, I think the dandelions thought it was fertilizer!
 
wahoowad said:
With our new puppy the ol’ lady is clamping down on my weed control. I get weeds and grass growing non-stop in our gravel driveway and around the backyard fence line and usually I mix up a few gallons of weed killer and spray them down about once a month.

At her request I did a small test of 100% vinegar and a lot of the weeds have started to turn brown after a couple days. I can’t tell yet if it just turned the foliage brown or if it’s actually killing the weed so it may take another couple weeks to see if this is going to be a good alternative to chemicals.

I’m curious if anybody else has switched to vinegar and if it requires 100% or if I can dilute it any?
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I have the best luck when I pick a hot sunny day. I use 20% vinegar with a few drops of Dawn and some table salt added (recipes galore online) and spray the weeds late morning and let the sun do the rest.
 
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My neighbor uses it. Got to keep hitting them with it. It can work ok on some young weeds, if you are vigilant.
I've not had great luck at all with it. I let the weeds grow to much before i get to them. Weed burner works, but doesn't really get the roots usually.
 
brenndatomu said:
I've not had any luck with any of the natural weed control recipes...heck, I think the dandelions thought it was fertilizer!
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I'm pretty sure that's what my poison ivy thought also. To be fair, harsher methods only had partial results and there is a good sized area in my yard that I "smothered" for a couple of years to get it taken care of. And that is the part that gets some full sun.

mari said:
I have the best luck when I pick a hot sunny day. I use 20% vinegar with a few drops of Dawn and some table salt added (recipes galore online) and spray the weeds late morning and let the sun do the rest.
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Well, that IS part of my problem. Our "hot" days, aren't so hot (comparatively speaking to your days). And truly sunny day has been hard to come by - not to mention shade that rotates thru the yard even when it is sunny.
 
Yes regular vinegar does not work on poison ivy. We sprayed it with my neighbor multiple times and it laughed at us. So i hit it with the weed burner, but even that did not eradicate it. The roots lived on to fight another day. Unfortunately roundup, or the like, is the only thing i've found that works on poison ivy.
 
How long does that need to be done to kill the plant (rather than only the above ground parts of a plant)?
 
That's the weed burner i use.

Killing the plant- it depends on the plant. Definitely need to hit them a couple times thru the season. But you just need short blasts, you don't actually need to burn the leaves. The cells explode with the heat and that kills the above ground part. Poison ivy is very persistent but the burner will shrivel the leaves in a 1 second blast.

Oh and if you do toast poison ivy make sure you don't breath any of the smoke!
 
It’d also depend on the type of weed and how long it had a chance to store energy in the roots. If it’s a new plant it probably doesn’t have the energy to rebuild itself.
 
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I will second/ third the weed burner. And it’s a fast way to light charcoal, and roast peppers, need to crisp up the steak does that too!
 
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I used to use the vinegar trick and always had to keep on it and was not worth the effort. A few years ago i switched to the Killex ready to spray weed killer and would spray my entire yard. Now after 2-3 years of this treatment i have switched to the concentrate and a hand sprayer as i have next to no weeds in my yard. This stuff is great as it does not kill the grass and works great on the weeds. I would have a weed free yard if the neighbours would maintain their yards, im the guy on the block with a weed free yard and everyone else if full of dandelion's and weeds.. Pretty sad if you ask me that they cannot keep their yards maintained.
 
zrock said:
I used to use the vinegar trick and always had to keep on it and was not worth the effort. A few years ago i switched to the Killex ready to spray weed killer and would spray my entire yard. Now after 2-3 years of this treatment i have switched to the concentrate and a hand sprayer as i have next to no weeds in my yard. This stuff is great as it does not kill the grass and works great on the weeds. I would have a weed free yard if the neighbours would maintain their yards, im the guy on the block with a weed free yard and everyone else if full of dandelion's and weeds.. Pretty sad if you ask me that they cannot keep their yards maintained.
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I'll take the weeds over my dogs walking on the poison grass, licking their then paws puking in the house, and maybe getting cancer from the years of injesting the herbicides.

I did use the corn gluten pre emergent in years past. It seemed to work ok here.
 
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bigealta said:
I'll take the weeds over my dogs walking on the poison grass, licking their then paws puking in the house, and maybe getting cancer from the years of injesting the herbicides.
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Yup!
Same environment for the kids to play on too! !!!
 
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yeah Guys Im taking forever to clear weeds out of control in my garden. BUT lots of weeds are edible.. Dandelions chickweed. etc.. I jiust wish I could gert around like I used to. Speaking of weed killer. 3 times in the past week I have smelled herbcide or fertlizer down in my garden, I dont jnow if some Ass hat is sprying up the hill or what. Or if our neferious bad guys are aerial spaying or what. Nothing would surprise me. I called locally and was told county or whatever discontinued spaying for bothersome mosquitoes etc. Im just ticked off knowing that Im trying to do my own little part in the scheme .of life

Did I tell you guys I met one of the inventors of the corn gluten stuff years ago while doing my retial work???. He was very in teresting. I tried to find him later but was unsuccesful > io had other retail jobs to finish and didnt have the time etc to listen to him and do my job..

Thank yall Blessings too Ps I cant see thje part on here to get notfied when there is a response anymore to our POSTS...
 
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Methinks my sigblock has reached its goal. Back to what it was before :)
 
After 24 hours it has been absorbed into the weed and is pretty much gone.. It never cause a problem for my animals but i did not let my dogs eat the grass since they always puked it back up, and that's not from the weed killer.

I guess all of us in our 50's survived pretty well with our parents out their spraying some pretty toxic stuff, i lived around farmers fields that were sprayed every year.. . The little bit of skin contact you may get is not going to do a thing
 
zrock said:
I guess all of us in our 50's survived pretty well with our parents out their spraying some pretty toxic stuff, i lived around farmers fields that were sprayed every year.. . The little bit of skin contact you may get is not going to do a thing
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You don't really know that, maybe you would have been smarter, taller, faster, etc. ;)
 
I'm nearing 50 and used to draw on the street - with what I later learned was asbestos corrugated roofing panels....
I'm still here.

The point in all of this is that exposure increases the probability of something going wrong in our bodies. It does not guarantee it.

Same as smoking: everyone knows a 90 year old that has smoked for the last 50 years.
That doesn't mean the probability of dying is not increased by doing so.

That's my $0.02

(And my other $0.0002 is that lawns consisting only of grass are boring.)
 
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