Earlier today Michelle gave us a list of some non-toxic weed killers you can buy. Here's another option: salt and vinegar! Last year Morgan Satterfield of The Brick House decided to install a 4,000 square foot gravel driveway. It gave her a place to park and it relieved some stress when it came time to plant. Located near Palm Springs, water is in short supply and this driveway seemed like a great, low maintenance compromise. But weeds still came through...
You can see the beautiful beginnings of this driveway over at The Brick House. It's a stunning work of art, all weed free and pretty. But even though there's a weed barrier placed under the gravel, as time passed dust and dirt settled between the rock and gave weeds just enough room to grow. So they looked for an eco-friendly solution and settled on salt and vinegar. After just a few days the weeds started to shrivel and brown.
Great idea! Do you have any other non-toxic weed solutions?
(Image: The Brick House)
100 DIY Ideas for the 3-Day Weekend
Danielle's Charming, Classic Walk-Up
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
White Enamel Flatwa...
How To Cook Fluffy, Tasty Quinoa
Perfect Summer Cocktail Recipe: Honey Bourbon Lemonade
My understanding is that salt - including de-icing salts - are really tough on trout and other sensitive fish populations. so be caution in your applications!
reg w - That is very true and that was taken into account in their area which receives very little rain and has weather that never has to be de-ices (lucky ducks)!
Wow, that's great information, and thanks reg w for the additional warning. We let the native stuff grow but the grass is a real pain. I did hear that you can put cardboard down and kill the vegetation but it was a suggestion for the winter, plus I assume it would kill any seedlings in the area as well. Am I right?
We've had success with some tough invasive like star thistle... wait until it gets really hot, hopefully in late spring when the weeds are still getting a foothold...water the area well, cover with plastic wrap and weigh down the edges of the plastic. leave it to bake for as long as you can bear to look at the plastic....!
What's the ratio of salt to vinegar? I desperately need to kill some weeds.
Please, please DON'T do this. Salting the earth to avoid weeds is the most misguided, dangerous, environmentalism-gone-awry I've heard all day. If there's weeds, there's water, and dumping salt on the ground means nothing will ever grow there or near there ever again for about 10,000 years.
Wiki says "Salting the earth, or sowing with salt, is the ritual of spreading salt on conquered cities to symbolize a curse on its re-inhabitation."
Even Homer Simpson knew this:
Ned: Excuse me, neighbor. I couldn't help but notice, you picked pretty much all of my flowers!
Homer: Can't make a float without flowers.
Ned: Oh, sure. But did you have to salt the earth so nothing would ever grow again?
Homer: Heh-heh, heh-heh ... yeah.
Hate me for saying it, but roundup is deactivated in the soil within hours. Or pull them out. Or torch them. Or redo your weed barrier. Or wash the dirt off the rocks with water. Or deal with it. But please please please don't think that because salt is "natural" its okay to go dumping everywhere.
Er, yeah. This is a very long term (or, extremely short-sighted) solution. If you're ever going to plant anything there in the future, you might have to replace the topsoil. On top of that, this is insanely bad for the environment due to run-off.
Dump some boiling water on it! Boil a kettle of tea and kill a few a day and bam, all done!