How to Kill Weeds with Vinegar: Easy Recipe and Usage Guide (2024)

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How to Kill Weeds with Vinegar: Easy Recipe and Usage Guide? ›

Fill a container with 1 gallon of white vinegar. Add one tablespoon of dish soap to the vinegar. Optional: Pour in 1 cup of salt.

Fill a container with 1 gallon of white vinegar. Add one tablespoon of dish soap to the vinegar. Optional: Pour in 1 cup of salt.

The one homemade recipe Strenge has seen work in action: 1 gallon of vinegar (5% acetic acid) mixed with 1 cup salt and 1 tablespoon dish soap, with an emphasis on the salt making its low concentration effective. “It will burn weeds on contact under the right conditions: warm, dry, sunny days,” he said.

The Takeaway. To eradicate weeds effectively, the roots need to be killed, not just the top growth, which synthetic weed killers do successfully. The bottom line is that mixing vinegar with Epsom salts or table salt and liquid dish soap does not make a safe, effective weed killer.

Vinegar is acidic and will eventually kill most broadleaf weeds, but the acid will kill the leaves before reaching the root system, and the weeds may grow back quickly. For longer-lasting removal, mix 1 cup of table salt with 1 gallon of vinegar. Salt dries out the weed's root system.

Vinegar kills most young weeds within 24 hours, so check the area you sprayed during the next 2–3 days to see if they wither away. If the weeds are still standing tall or developing new growth, coat them with more of the vinegar solution. Keep checking and spraying the weeds until they completely die out.

Substances that Kill Weeds Permanently

Bleach is highly effective in killing mature weeds, and unlike vinegar, will prevent new weeds from coming back because it remains in the soil.

Both will work and a build-up of both in your garden soil is bad. Too much of any salt can lead to wilting and dead plants, and while using Epsom salts avoids table salt's potential for sodium toxicity, excess magnesium from Epsom salts can interfere with phosphorus absorption in plants (that's bad).

Baking soda is a good solution for killing weeds in certain cases. This common household product will kill all small types of weeds. You can also use it to control powdery mildew, a fungal disease that affects beloved landscape plants such as rose bushes and lilac shrubs.

The acetic acid in even household vinegar was MORE toxic than Roundup! Going one step further, in this case a comparison of rate of application is a moot point. A 1% solution of glyphosate will kill most any annual weed listed on the label, and also the majority of perennial weeds.

What home remedy kills weeds permanently? ›

Horticultural-grade vinegar is 15% to 20% acetic acid and a highly effective weed killer. Household vinegar is 5% acetic acid and can provide some control against young weeds with one to two leaves.

Vinegar is an ok method, but not the best weed killer . For example, it does not work immediately. For it to work, you have to wait for the vinegar to sit in the weeds from your garden for a few days. The vinegar will kill the weed's roots.

Most applications call for a 1:1 ratio of water to vinegar so the strength of the acid isn't too intense or damaging, and it can be stored in a jar or a spray bottle for easy access. Here's how we use white vinegar to clean 18 things in our kitchens.

Vinegar/Water Ratios

As a general rule, most natural cleaning experts suggest mixing one part vinegar to one part water.

No, white vinegar will not permanently kill weeds. While its acetic acid helps to dry up and kill the foliage of weeds, it's only effective upon application and doesn't penetrate deep into the roots.

That's a little bit disappointing, but it's not at all surprising [10:13] because again, Roundup is a systemic. It's going to kill the entire weed. It's absorbed in through the leaves, goes to the stems and the roots, and kills the whole thing. Vinegar, all it's doing is just killing the leaves and that's it.

Salt: Spreading iodized salt on the gravel will kill weeds, but it will sterilize the ground for years to come, so use it sparingly. Boiling Water: Another way to kill weeds naturally is to pour boiling water over them. By Hand: If there aren't many weeds in your gravel, it's best to pull weeds out by hand.