Weeds are stubborn plants that take valuable space, sunlight, and minerals from the other plants in your garden. They also grow from tiny cracks in concrete and patios too, making a garden look overgrown and unsightly.
Fortunately for you, there are many treatments for weed infestations. Along with products that use herbicide chemicals, there are also home remedies that are cheap and easy to create. In this short guide, you’ll learn how to permanently kill weeds with both chemical and natural solutions.
How To Kill Weeds Permanently
Salt & Vinegar
A popular home remedy for killing weeds can be created with salt, vinegar, and dish soap. There are many ways you can use each of those components, like simply sprinkling salt onto the weeds, but they’re best when used together.
Here’s a quick and easy recipe for creating a homemade spray that’ll kill weeds effectively. These are cheap ingredients that you probably have in your house already, so all you need to do is raid your kitchen cupboard or, at worst, go to the supermarket.
To make this mixture, you should combine one quart of vinegar, two cups of Epsom salt, and a quarter-cup of dish-washing detergent. You’ll also need a spare spray bottle to keep the solution in and evenly spray it over the plants you want to kill.
Heat the vinegar in a pan with the oven until it turns hot but doesn’t start to boil. Stir the salt into the vinegar, where it should dissolve quite quickly, then you should wait for a small while to let the solution cool off.
Adding in the dish soap, you should pour the salt & vinegar mixture on top and then you’re ready to spray. It’s best applied on hot days, where it’ll make the plants wilt in mere hours.
You should also apply it during good weather because rain will wash the plants and stop the solution from being effective. You may need to reapply the homemade spray for a second time to get the job done, though you can expect the weeds to be dead after several days.
It also doesn’t harm the soil beneath, so it can be used for other things. The mixture works because the vinegar draws some moisture out of the plant without harming humans and animals in the area.
You can use the cheapest vinegar and salt for this spray. Cleaning vinegar is often cheaper than cooking vinegar, so you should look in the relevant supermarket sections if you’re on the hunt for a bargain.
Distilled white vinegar (at 5% acidity) is a good choice though you should consider that vinegar with high acidity will work much faster. As for the salt, Epsom salt does work pretty well but so does regular salt, whether it’s iodized and non-iodized. If it’s sodium chloride, it’ll still get the job done.
This is one of the most natural ways that you can eliminate weeds from your garden while keeping the soil and all of the wildlife around you completely safe.
Bleach
Bleach is great for getting rid of most things, small weeds included. That said, larger and more powerful weeds, like English Ivy, won’t be deterred by bleach. You should also consider that using bleach is the nuclear option since you won’t be able to use that space for growing good plants in the future.
The ground will be contaminated by the bleach and it can take months for it to go back to normal.
Bleach isn’t good for the environment, who knew? Because of that, we wouldn’t recommend using it in your own garden. If you have weeds growing through concrete cracks, bleach can be great for killing those small weeds and keeping them away for months afterward.
Baking Soda
Baking soda is another solution that’s relatively harmless to the rest of your garden, as long as you apply it carefully. All you need is one teaspoon of baking soda that is then sprinkled onto the weeds that are causing your garden problems. Do this weekly and repeat until the weeds are dead.
Once they are dead or dying, you may want to consider pulling them up from the ground instead of leaving them in the dirt. See the next section below for more advice on that.
Pulling Weeds
Killing weeds when they’re in the ground is good but gardeners typically pull them right out of the ground, where they can be completely disposed of.
While some weeds can be pulled without any prep work, it’s ideal to rip them out of the ground one to two days after you’ve sprayed them with a solution of your choice above. When you notice that the weeds are dying, their roots will have become weakened and so taking them out of the ground will be much easier.
Weeding is ideal for removing all weed plant matter, especially since chemical and natural solutions sometimes won’t kill the plant fully. Remember that you need to uproot the entire weed to ensure it stays away.
How To Stop Weeds From Growing Back
With all of the above information in mind, you should remember these five tips that make weeding much easier.
- Make sure you attack the roots of weeds to properly kill them and stop them from coming back.
- When pulling weeds, make sure you pull them up after rain. The moisture loosens the soil, making it easier for you.
- Pull the heads off of weeds so that they don’t produce and distribute seeds across your garden.
- Use bark or straw to mulch around your plants. These will create a smothering layer over the undesirable plants, stopping weeds from breaking through the soil.
- When planting good plants, try to keep them close together so that weeds cannot form in the spaces between them.
By keeping all of these in mind when creating and applying your anti-weed solution, your efforts should be more successful and your garden will stay free of weeds for the foreseeable future.
