vinegar kills weeds

[plantsnobin]

Plain old vinegar. I know they are marketing a horticultural vinegar, that has not been diluted, but it is not needed. I have a rather large area that is covered with pea gravel, and last year I let a Verbena bonariensis go to seed. Big mistake. There are millions of them now covering the gravel I have been trying to pull them, or burn them with my little weed torch but was losing the battle. Sprayed them with $1.79 a gallon vinegar, and they were wilting within minutes. Also effective on the pigweed, horseweed and a few others. Not as effective on the ?crabgrass.

[stratcat]

I use white vinegar to get rid of grass in sidewalk cracks. I spray weeds in the sun and they whither! ;D Beats using Round-Up.

This was my 2002 Master Gardener tip. People thought I was joking.

john

[canadamike]

It is true, plain vinegar works. I use pickling vinegar, at 7%. The one they sell in stores is 7.15% ( well, there's got to be some engineering to justify the price ), the price here is 14.95 a quart.

I am in the wrong business...

As a mather of fact, I plan to kill a huge patch of grass and weeds this week-end ( 10 x 25 or so). I could not find pickling vinegar in stores yet, it is usually coming in later, but I could try the 5% version, take pictures and report here. The grass and weeds are very mature. On the plus side there is the leaf canopy, the bigger, the more ''poison'' is absorbed , but it is an ''ecosystem'' of some sort, I never attacked such a patch. I don't doubt the effect on the leaves, I just don't know if ALL the mature roots will die.

Does anybody here has an answer?

[lavandulagirl]

You may have to go back over the area again, Michel, especially if there are the wire grass types in the bed. Eventually you will win, though.

[canadamike]

I live in COLD Canada LAV, no wire grass here
The telephone was invented here, remember, so we are quite advanced in the telecommunications department.

Even our grasses are wireless...

[lavandulagirl]

so you have no grasses that reproduce with both rhizome and stolon? What the hell, are you just growing back bacon out there? Seriously, do you have bluestem or something? That's also a rhizome spreader, and will take more than one foliar application.

[plantsnobin]

My husband was impressed last night when he got home, surprised that it worked. Didn't even really complain about the smell. The vinegar they have here is 5%, and it worked fine. It was $1.79 a gallon at Save a Lot. I used 5 gallons, am going to go get more today. I think the key is a good hot day with plenty of sunshine. The great part is that it works so fast you can quickly tell if you have missed a spot. Now I can just burn off the plant residue with my little torch and my gravel area will look a lot better. I shouldn't have let it get that bad, but the weather we have had this year really has everything growing very well.

[canadamike]

Just kidding LAV. Rhizome spreaders we have, but stolon spreaders, if we have them, I never noticed them. I sure never had any in my gardens. I am not a grass specialist though, and they all fall under the category ''weeds'' exept the beautiful ones with ''plumes'' ( searching for an english word here) which I adore.