How To Kill Weeds Without Spraying in Tough Areas
For large areas of weeds and grasses, we learned there is one sure way how to kill weeds which doesn’t involve spraying of any kind. And it really works (unlike that vinegar-salt solution you’ve probably read about).
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When we moved from our 50×100 city lot to a semi-rural acre I thought I had a handle on dealing with weeds organically.
Mainly it involved covering beds with newspaper and mulch and using raised beds with permanent paths for vegetables.
Oh, and of course some hand pulling. There’s no getting away from that totally.
But I had no idea what we would face with even a relatively small acreage. No idea.
Here are just a few of the areas we routinely had to address or they would get completely covered:
- Drainage ditches all along the front of the property next to the road. These were our responsibility to keep them clear to allow water run-off, though once a year the foot next to the road was mowed.
- Gravel driveway. We had a circular drive as well as one leading from it to the front of the garage. So much gravel that weeds love to grow in.
- Fence lines. If you ignore these, you will eventually not see the fence. In Oregon, many fence lines are completely covered with invasive blackberries.
- Much more pernicious weeds. Like, so many more. Spurge, purslane, plantain, and super strong grasses that I ended up calling “pasture grass.” And here I thought dandelion was the worst.
How to kill weeds
So.many.weeds. And areas to grow weeds.
I tried many of the things that you can find if you Google “how to kill weeds.” Pages and pages of articles come up with titles like “how to kill weeds naturally,” “15 homemade organic weed killers,” “13 Best Homemade Weed Killers,” “9 natural ways to kill weeds.”
There’s even a “Hands Down Best Way to Kill Weeds – And it’s Not Roundup.”
But let me save you from having to google it by boiling all these down to basically one thing:
Mix vinegar, salt and dish soap together and ta-da, weeds are gone!
But are they, really? Or is it just for a day or a week?
And is using salt and/or vinegar in the garden even environmentally friendly?
Sadly, vinegar is NOT permanent, since it doesn’t kill the roots. Adding the salt may make it last a bit longer, but the perennial weeds will just grow back. And while the vinegar breaks down and doesn’t hurt the soil or create run-off, the same can’t be said for salt.
Why using salt on your property is NOT a good idea
The sodium ions you add to your soil anywhere on your property will be there forever – but they won’t stay in one place.
Even if you’re applying salt in an area you never want anything to grow (gravel driveways, paths, between pavers), rain water will take the salt ions and create run-off to other areas of your yard where you do want things to grow – and potentially contaminate neighbors yards and nearby creeks, rivers, or lakes if used in abundance over time.
Here are most of the other natural methods mentioned and how they worked for me. They include using:
- Newspaper and cardboard – which I LOVE and use all the time in our gardens combined with mulch. It’s not an option for gravel areas, ditches, or fence lines, though.
- Only vinegar – like I mentioned, this kills the tops, but never the roots.
- Only salt, rock salt, or epsom salt – same problem with the salt-vinegar solution, plus damaging the environment.
- Boiling water – I did this a lot on our driveway when I had boiling water canners to dump and I can tell you that for persistent perennial weeds, it only takes them down a bit and browns some, but they come right back.
- Bleach – didn’t do anything on the gravel drive perennial weeds – nothing.
- Goats (ha!) – doesn’t work if you don’t have room, the lifestyle to care for them, or if your main weeds are in gravel driveways…
- Mow them – seriously, if they were mowable, they wouldn’t be weeds – that’s just was we call our ‘grass’ out here, lol.
- A “new mindset” – sheesh…probably written by someone like I used to be on a 50×100 city lot with wooden fences to keep blowing weeds seeds down)
- Lemon juice – usually combined with vinegar (if alone, mix with dish soap to stick – 1/3 cup vinegar to 1 teaspoon soap) – I haven’t tried this one, so I’ll have to update this after I do – have you?
- Vodka + soap – this is another I hadn’t heard of before searching. I have a feeling it will be like the vinegar, killing the tops but not the roots, but I will need to test it out.
One thing mentioned only occasionally is corn gluten meal – it doesn’t kill weeds after they’ve germinated, so maybe that’s why it’s not mentioned more. It is a preemergent, so in established beds, you can sprinkle it all around to keep weeds from germinating (though it won’t be effective against perennial weeds that come up from established roots).
For large areas we wanted weeds to never grow – gravel pathways and new beds and borders – we tried a couple more supposedly permanent solutions that were mentioned:
- Landscape fabric – please, please as someone who’s pulled many previous owners weed infested fabric, just no).
- Old carpet – particularly bad where we live (mild climate + good amounts of rain = lots of grasses and weeds) as the grass and weeds grew right threw and around the edges which were then impossible to remove.
Our Solution for Killing Weeds Without Spraying
So what did we find that works 100% of the time? Black plastic!
Black plastic has become a major weapon in our constant fight against weeds and pernicious grasses. I wrote about how I use it in some of our vegetable beds to help us garden without tilling but it also allows us to create gravel walkways and patios and kills weedy areas we want to plant.
In fact, I have three lidded garbage bins labeled “Black Plastic” in the garden shed to protect the plastic from the mice during the off season when I’m not using it.
And not just because I like it – it’s mainly because this stuff is NOT cheap, and I was not happy the spring I went to get the plastic and found it riddled with mice holes.
Here is the type of plastic we use: 6ml black plastic sheeting (the thicker the better)
So we protect our plastic here and we use it to take care of areas we need to keep grass and weeds away on a permanent basis like pathways and between crops like berries.
As you may have guessed, we did not always embrace black plastic as we do now. Here’s a video of our story:
Where NOT to use black plastic sheeting:
We do not use black plastic in flower beds covered with bark mulch – a look I find particularly nasty and one that does not enrich the soil for the plants living there.
For those beds we use the newspaper-and-mulch method I’ve mentioned as well as the other techniques I outline in how to keep weeds out of your garden.
What about at the farmhouse – have you used plastic there?
Yes! It’s keeping the area of our future sunken deer-resistant garden mostly weed free until we can get to it and it has kept the weeds down around the front of the vegetable garden while I waited for wood chips.
Recently, I added it permanently to the edges of our fenced vegetable garden, covering it with straw to keep the grass and weeds from encroaching into the wood chip paths.
However, it’s not a solution to the two issues that drive me crazy: the large gravel driveway and the rock wall borders that sprout weeds like mad.
Sigh – there’s always something, isn’t there? I’m going to try the more organic-friendly Burnout Weed & Grass Killer in these places.
So, tell me, how do you kill weeds?
This article has been updated – it was originally published in May of 2010.
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I live in Minnesota and my favorite garden is a hilly woodland that loved to grow noxious weeds that were impossible to manage. I used all of the Master Gardener wisdom I had acquired and failed miserably. Then, by accident, I found a miraculous solution. My husband blows our fall leaves and bags them over winter. Some are shredded, but the ones that are mostly whole I use in the woodland in the spring to control weeds. The bags get wet over the winter, so the leaves are soggy, and in clumps when I remove them from the bags. I lay them carefully, adjacent to my precious woodland plants in large clumps, and NOTHING can get through these inter-woven leaf clumps. My weed cover is usually 4-6″ deep. I can do the entire woodland in 2-3 hours with about 10 large bags of leaves and I don’t have to touch it the rest of the summer. When we add water to the bed on dry weeks, the leaves help maintain ground moisture.
That’s wonderful, Peggy! What a great solution you stumbled upon. š We’re always told to shred those leaves before using – here’s one time you don’t want to do that!
Oh, and also, a spray. I’m going to try mixing tcehe 30% vinegar with a citrus ‘degreaser’ – available on Amazon, as in the ‘vinegar plus citrus’ recipe. Commenters on Amazon have ratios, dilutions, success/failure, etc. Will not kill ‘roots’, but should take care of the earliest spring seedlings, poppers, etc.
Let me know how that goes!
Hi Jami,
Thanks for sharing. I like the paper, cardboard & mulch. I used plastic one year and the ground underneath became bone dry (which might be OK on fence line, etc.) And then ‘spun’ ‘landscape fabric’, and the quack grass came right up through it, as you discovered š
Then I found woven’silt fencing’… used on construction sites to allow water to pass thru but keep soil (i.e. silt) from washing off the building site. (Sometimes they toss it at end of a project…. be ready to ‘catch’ it š Soil stays in perfect condition, minus weed growth š I use it to keep a ‘fallow’ bed weed free til I plant it. And around a ‘permanent’ shrub, etc… with an attractive mulch (that also ‘feeds’ nutrients to the roots over time. It is used by organic truck farmers to cover beds, with holes ‘burnt’ where seeds or transplants go in.
I’d love to find that, Nancy! I’ll be on the look out for that.
So since canning season is here I thought I would tell you how to get weeds gone. I use boiling water from my canner. It kills them dead
Yes, I do that to with my hot canner water, Sara! Unfortunately, it only works on some weeds -usually annuals – though it stops the perennials for a few weeks. They just grow back with the first rains around here. š
for the garlic and mint spray can i use any dish washing soap?
Technically, yes, but I’d really suggest finding a biodegradable, especially if you’re spraying food crops.
Have you tried gardening vinegar? It is 30% acid as opposed to regular vinegar which is 5%. Don’t use it on a windy day. I have been using it on my suburban lot that had a huge poison ivy patch with vines growing up the trees. After it wilted, I covered it with cardboard and mulch. That was last year. So far so good
No, I haven’t Lynn! It’s hard to find and there are a TON of precautions about using it as it’s very caustic. If I could find it I may try it, though at least on the driveway.
Amazon carries it.
I canāt stand the weeding in my vegetable garden! I saw your video about organic weed control using newspaper and mulch. In it you mentioned you use a different kind of mulch for your vegetable gardens, I assume to go over the newspaper. Can you let me know what would keep the weeds out yet still be good for the soil?
I hear you, Brian! If it’s between the plants, I use a garden compost that usually includes manure to feed all season long. If it’s in paths, I’ll use straw or grass clippings. You might want to check out my no-till garden technique – I don’t have weeds with this method and so don’t even need the paper, just the mulch. š No-Till Gardening Method = Less Weeds
Please pardon my ignorance, but where do you purchase black plastic?… We have *Morning Glory* taking over our entire back yard and that is NOT the look we are going for! (my husband says it should be called *Devil Weed*! ha!)… Anyway… Do you think the black plastic will work to get rid of that?
We buy it at home stores like Home Depot or Lowes. They have all different thicknesses – the thicker is more expensive, but it lasts longer. We now just suck it up and buy the thicker (they also sell clear plastic in the same area – make sure the box you get is black).
As for the “morning glory” that a weed called Bindweed and is not at all like the beautiful Morning Glory that we can grow from seed. It is one of the most noxious weeds I know of and is named appropriately: it covers other plants, binding them and choking them to death. Do what you can to get rid of it- but be warned: ANY little piece of root left in the ground will grow TWO or more plants from it! It’s really awful. š
is the plastic advertised as a weed screen or is it just random plastic? also is it uv resistant? is it sold by the roll? thank you in advance
No it is not the stuff sold as “weed block” – that has tiny holes in it that allows the grass to grow through (in our experience). You want the black plastic sold in rolls in various thicknesses at home stores – obviously the thickest you can afford will be the best. Hope that helps!
Oh wow — we had a similar problem. More grass in our vegetable beds then veggies, and that was AFTER using plastic. An alternative that worked GREAT was to use old sheers that I was going to toss anyway. We pinned ’em down over the grass, added 8 inches of soil and mulch, and voila; gorgeous vegetable beds that are a snap to weed now that the pernicious grass is dead and buried. OK, so all is not perfect in our garden, yet. The grass growing around the outside of the fence has begun to encroach, but I’m fixing to bury it with more curtains (so many windows; so many bad choices) and mulch from the white pine that crushed our garden three weeks ago. The garden survived. That grass won’t!.
That’s quite a creative use of window coverings, Anne. š I say whatever you find that helps is good!
Love the video and the tip. Keep em coming. š
Love the videos!….However who uses the word ” pernicious “! he he…bet it was Brian’s idea! Keep up the great blog. Wish my back yard could look as good as yours.
With little garden of ours, weeding is still a wonderful chore.., sitting on a low stool, pulling one after another. With acres of garden, that would definitely be a different story altogether.
~bangchik
Putrajaya Malaysia
Hi,
I removed them by hand, every day.
Great idea the black plastic.
We used the newspaper method last year. It worked great so I plan on implementing it this year too.
You guys are adorable! Great video! I need to get me some black plastic š
I love your videos – so fun! We’ve used newspaper and landscape cloth – but never black plastic – we’ll have to give that a try…