by Texas Homesteader ~
Something with a single long taproot seeded itself prolifically in my front ‘flower bed’ last year. Now that spring is just around the corner, they all sprouted with a vengeance!
So that it doesn’t become a bigger problem I started digging out all the plants that I could reach.
But I was dismayed to see how thickly they were sprouting in my rock feature at the downspout. That digging stick wasn’t as effective in the rocks as it was in the soil.
And ugh, my aching back. What a pain!
Wonder if I can use something I’ve already got? I have a spray bottle in my kitchen filled with diluted vinegar. I use it often for cleaning.
But I know plants don’t like to be sprayed with vinegar. Maybe this spray bottle already sitting beneath my sink containing only vinegar/water can help me with these weeds.
Now when I mixed up the vinegar and water into this spray bottle I didn’t really measure anything. It seems I poured in about 1/4 cup plain white distilled vinegar and the rest of the spray bottle was filled with water.
I use this spray bottle when I’m spot-cleaning a spill on the kitchen floor or cleaning the stove top. It’s a great non-toxic cleaner that’s in my Natural Cleaner Arsenal.
Calm Winds And Sunshine To The Rescue!
So, I took advantage of a day with low wind & sunshine to kill those weeds DEAD! I slipped into the kitchen & fetched my vinegar spray from beneath the kitchen cabinet. I’m going to use this homemade cleaning mixture of vinegar/water to kill weeds.
I was sure to spray the leaf surfaces of all the plants that I wanted dead. And I was extra careful not to allow over-spray to drift onto any desirable plants.
Then I sat back & let the sunshine and vinegar do all the hard work.
The plants are completely dead now of course, but the photo below is a pretty dramatic before/after difference I saw in just a few hours!
When I’m getting serious with weed spraying I use my heavy-duty non-toxic Weed Killer Recipe. It’s the only thing I’ll use around the perimeter fence of my veggie garden.
But for these small weeds I didn’t even have to mix anything up – just fetch the spray bottle of vinegar/water I already had & get to spraying the weeds.
Gotta love a cheap, fast, non-poison way to kill hard-to-dig weeds!
And no hand-n-knees digging beneath that hot Texas sun either. Sometimes the lower-tech ways to kill weeds are the best.
~TxH~
My Favorite Garden Hacks
- Easy Garden Planning Spreadsheet
- Getting A Jump: Planting An Indoor Greenhouse
- Repurposed Cardboard Seed-Starting Pots
- 3-Sister’s Garden – The Original Companion Planting
- Low-Cost Vegetable Gardening
- Planting A Large Galvanized Trough
- Using Cheap Biodegradable Weed Block
- Tricking Birds AWAY From Your Strawberry Plants
- Easy Compost For A Healthy Garden
- Propping Tender Seedlings
- Cheap (or FREE) Wood Mulch For The Garden
- Homestead Hack: Remember Where You Planted Seeds
- How Vegetable Gardening Can Change Your Life!
- Easy Deep-Soak Watering
- Planting Potatoes In Galvanized Trough
- Planting A Blueberry Bush In Galvanized Tub
- Stevia – Growing Your Own Sweetener!
- How I Use EcoBricks In The Garden
- Compost Old Confidential Documents
- Repurposing A Coffee Can For Deep-Soak Watering
- How Leaves Benefit Your Garden
- My Simple, Zero-Waste Herb Drying Setup
- How To Grow Fresh Salad Greens In All Seasons
MORE Gardening Posts
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Thanks for sharing your post on the Homestead Blog Hop, I am constantly encouraging folks to use non toxic methods to get rid of weeds! As one of the co-hosts I will be sharing your post on the Hop this Thursday!
-Nancy ( Nancy On The Home Front )
It’s always in the bag for us to try the most gentle solution first, moving up the ladder only if that doesn’t suffice. More times than not the gentlest solution works. ~TxH~
I didn’t know that vinegar would do this…although I guess it makes sense! Thanks for sharing on the Waste Less Wednesday Blog Hop!
Gosh! I wonder if it will work on horehound! We are so badly infested with that stuff! It. Just. WON’T. Go. AWAY. I’ll be giving this a try! Thanks!
It works best with broadleaf weeds on a sunshiny day, Heidi. But it’s non-discriminatory so be sure there’s no wind to drift the spray onto any desirable plants. ~TxH~
I use vinegar too; I don’t like to use poisons, especially near my gardens. The driveway runs right up to in front of my house; the gravel there has landscape fabric under it to keep weeds from growing. But that only means weeds from underneath; as dust & dirt blows around we get shallow rooted things taking hold & chickpea especially can spread into a large area quickly.
I had read that vinegar works, but it wasn’t from someone I trusted. Thank you!
Although it’s too bad you don’t just add them to your salad- they’re a bitter green that’s good for you
Oh yeah, vinegar is the only thing we use around our garden area Laurinda, I’d rather tread as gently as possible on our little piece of paradise. ~TxH~