How To Make A Natural Weedkiller

Weedkillers always worry me. Not only do we have kids, we also have pets and I never know how toxic they are to wildlife and insects either. So I decided to do some googling and came across a few recipes for making your own natural weedkiller. Most involved white vinegar and salt but in massive amounts which would make far too much for the average UK garden owner (let’s face it most new homes have a garden the size of a postage stamp!) I gave it a try, after a few hours we already saw results, so here is what we did…

Natural Weedkiller Recipe

You will need:

• An empty bottle (I had a plastic one from an old surface cleaner that I washed out and kept for something ‘one day’. My one day finally came!)
• 1 oz Salt (I used table salt)
• 1 pint White vinegar
• Squirt of Washing up liquid

Simply measure out your ingredients and add them to your bottle. Give it a good shake to mix it up and you are done!

What Each Ingredient Does

The washing up liquid cuts through the waxy layers on the weed’s leaves to allow the other ingredients to get through.

The white vinegar absorbs the moisture in the weed causing it to shrivel up and die.

The salt does a similar job to the white vinegar. As it enters the weed it dehydrates it causing it to wilt. It can take up to ten days for it to be fully absorbed by the weed.

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Using

Now I read online that this weedkiller cannot differentiate between plants which means it will happily kill off flowers, grass, plants, leaves on bushes etc so you need to be very very careful. Simply spray all over the weed and leave to work. We found that we needed to really douse the bigger ones as well as the more stubborn ones. Smaller weeds died within hours. The sun will also help to speed up the process.

Storage

Store your new weedkiller away from little people and in a dark place to help to preserve it.

This was so simple to do and will not only save us money but also time and our environment.

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