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white vinegar vs round up

22K views 54 replies 39 participants last post by  ss12 
#1 ·
A co-worker told me to save my money on buying Round Up and just use white vinegar. Has anyone used white vinegar with good results? I though for $1.95 for a gallon why not give it a shot. A week later I don't see any results with the vinegar. Round Up has always done a heck of a job killing anything and everything.
 
#4 ·
I read the same a few years back and tried it. You are missing one key ingredient: 3 cups of salt per gallon of vinegar. We used this as a pet-safe vegetation killer. It does work, but you need to apply it heavier than commercial killers, and more often.
:goodl:
 
#39 ·
It might depend on the type and brand if vinegar one uses. What did you use? I use bleach in a sparay bottle on the weeds in the seems in the cement and street. Cheap and it realy works. It kills the seeds that have not sprouted. We don't use anything else. We have city landscaping and no fence rows or barn yards.

Speeking of organic which is a huge joke in may ways. A friend of mine is a CPA. He has a client that owns a chicken ranch. The organic chickens are always sick and deseased. They have one heck of a time getting them to market. They are a loss leader and they are going to stopp selling them. They cost over twice what the regular chickens cost to produce. Organic is a gimmick. Just another way to part you from your Green Backs.
 
#11 ·
I used 1 gal vinegar, 2/3 cup salt, & a healthy squeeze of dish soap on my poison ivy last weekend and much of it has turned brown and dried up. Gonna up the dose to 2 cups salt and re-treat the remaining this weekend if the rain holds off.
 
#24 ·
If you want to kill ants feed them corn meal. They cant digest it and it plugs them up and they die.
 
#29 ·
So on this same subject... I'm about to park our RV out on this land finally. It will be in the same spot for maybe a year, maybe longer, while we decide where and what to build permanantly.

I was going to treat the grass under where the RV will be with the vinegar/orange oil solution and wanted to know how long term the herbicide effects are. Once we move the RV back home, I would want grass back in that spot.
 
#30 ·
Papa Smurf, it's a contact kill, it won't provide any pre-emergent control at all, so you will need to reapply as new weeds come up.
 
#31 ·
I missed this when it was first posted. I saved this article a long time ago. I have no idea who the author is, but it is great eco friendly remedies.



The 7 Deadly Homemade Weed Killers
  1. Boiling Water - Yep, that’s right. Plain old H2O can be used as an extremely effective weed killer. As a matter of fact, boiling water is more effective than many of your store bought weed killers in wiping out unwanted vegetation. Easy-peasy to do. Put a kettle of tap water on the stove and heat till boiling, then pour on the weeds you wish to kill.You are effectively cooking the plant in the ground. Boiling water is a great way to clear out vegetation on a wholesale basis, like driveways and sidewalks. But be warned, boiling water is not selective. It will cook and instantly kill any plant that it comes in contact with and this includes underground roots of nearby plants.
  2. Bleach - Not only is bleach a spot remover, it is a weed remover as well. Place some bleach in a spray bottle and spray on the weed you wish to remove. The bleach chemicals will evaporate or dissipate in about two days (or less but better safe than sorry), making the area safe for planting. Again, bleach will kill anything but if you do get some on a plant you want to keep, just wash the plant off.
  3. Vinegar - Vinegar is a great organic homemade weed killer. Either white or cider vinegar will work. The acetic acid in the vinegar works to kill the leaves on the plant but not the root. Vinegar will kill back (kill the leaves but not the root) any plant but works best on young plants because they do not have enough energy stored in the roots to regrow their leaves. If vinegar is applied to more established weeds enough times, the plant will eventually deplete its stored energy reserves and die.
  4. Salt - It was once a known war tactic to salt the fields of enemies. Salting the earth was also used as punishment for severe crimes in several countries throughout history. The reason is because salt will kill plants and will make the ground unsuitable for future plant growth. On a small scale, you can drop a small pinch of table salt at the base of the undesirable plants. It will kill the plant but will dilute down to harmless in the next few rainfalls. On a larger scale, you can cover your gravel driveway or your ex’s yard with a good amount of salt and nothing will grow there for months. (FYI, it is illegal to salt another person’s property. It’s called vandalism.)
  5. Rubbing Alcohol - Rubbing alcohol is used around the house because it draws water out and helps to evaporate it quickly. Guess what? If you put it on a plant, it will do the same thing. You will be basically sucking the life blood out of the weed. Makes you want to run right out and try it, huh? But again, rubbing alcohol is non-selective. It will kill any vegetation it comes contact with.
  6. Corn Meal - Corn meal doesn’t really kill weeds, it just stops the weed seeds from ever developing. Corn Gluten is a pre-emergent, which is a fancy way of saying that is it is a seed birth-control. Corn meal scattered around an area will keep any seed in that area from growing into a plant. This means a weed seed or a desirable seed. This method is a good option for areas that you plan on planting grown plants in.
  7. Newspaper - If murdering your weeds with chemicals is not your style, you can always smother them. Laying down a layer of newspaper at least 4 sheets thick (the more the better) will go a long way towards killing the weeds underneath. The weeds that are already there will die from lack of sun and the weed seeds will not be able to sprout because they are not getting any sun to start with.
 
#32 ·
Crop Production services has branches in all the lower 48 states and markets their Glyphosate herbicide as "Makaze". Quite a lot cheaper than the Monsanto original even though you need to mix it a little stronger to get the same burndown time. If you're tyring to do selective control you can rig an inverted funnel on your sprayer wand for a shield. Set the funnel firmly down on top of the target and give it a shot as quick as you can squeeze and release the valve. I was able to nuke crabgrass clumps growing tight to cornstalks with no crop damage.
 
#35 ·
There is evidence that plants will adapt to most chemcials like glyphosate. Look at the fields of roundup ready beans and corn. Lots of weeds out there, more every year. For 55 years I have hoed in gardens and small fields, used cultivators and wheel hoes all the while keeping my eyes on the garden for pest, malnutrition in the plants. The old proverb, there is no better fertilizer for a garden than the footsteps of the gardener is still true.

Bob
 
#37 ·
25 yrs back, I used to spray about 5 x 20 litre containers of Roundup per 6 months at half strength on a large sub tropical orchard here in NZ. If timing it right, I used to spray twice a year (before grasses/weeds flowered) and use only drip irrigation. 3 times per yr if I was slow getting to it. If knocking down fresh pasture, I'd increase strength to 75%.
I found calibration of the tractor spraying system well worth the effort. Over spraying gets so costly and also is not good environmentally.
Now I'm off the orchard and practice organic methods for virtually every thing around the yards I care for. What BanjoBob (2 above) wrote, 'is dead on the nail' in any land based farming or care because we are only here on our little patches of dirt for such a short time. It absolutely horrifies me to read about those who practice salting of the soils. I learnt the problems that drip irrigation has on the soils when orcharding, especially when over watering.
If wanting to kill grasses/weeds, like one chap wanted around a vehicle stored for a long period of time, I'd suggest laying down black plastic or old woolen carpet down then. (or a goat) When black polythene plastic is used, & the soil is wanted to be used for growing again, its simple and VERY cost effective. Newspaper is ok & certainly works wonderfully but generally I find it rots down pretty quick and unless a mulch is placed on top, such as pine bark chips which is commonly used here in NZ. Another product used is sea shells (usually crushed) or a layer or small (>half inch) peebles.
Up my drive way, I've taken to hot water for areas where paving stones and concrete is and a push hoe for broader spaces of gravel & peebles.
Will
 
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