Kill The Weeds. Cut The Chemicals. I'm Making Homemade Weed Killer!

We have a huge amount of landscaping at our home; which is one of favorite things about our house. It also leads to a huge amount of shrubbery grooming and weed pulling. The most pesky weeds that we deal with are those strongly rooted suckers that start beneath the patio bricks and eventually coat your walkways in a sort of weed carpet (looks good, right?).

After hand-pulling all the weeds from our garden beds, my fingers and hammies were both screaming so I wanted to tackle our unsightly patio "rug" with a spray-on weed killer instead of sweating it out on my hands and knees any longer. Full disclosure: we had a LOT of overgrowth to deal with so I knew I was going to need some sort of herbicide to rain down upon large swaths of my backyard. Oh, the chemicals! Oh, the horror! Thus began my search for an effective (and safe) alternative to chemical weed sprays.

If you're cautious about using products containing Glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup and a chemical that has been linked to a variety of health concerns according to consumersafety.org) or 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (the active ingredient in a number of products including Ortho Weed-B-Gon which could pose fertility risks and environmental concerns according to the Natural Resource Defense Council) around your home, you are not alone! We grow food which our family eats in the same backyard that I am wanting to vanquish the weeds using a liquid killer. I'm not too keen on dousing my outdoor space (and subsequently all of my run-off water) with these potentially very toxic substances...which will then, more than likely, make it's way into my son's watermelon patch. Bummer, right? There had to be a better way. My solution: I was going to make my own natural weed killer spray...from scratch!

I started by doing a whole lot of Pinterest and Google digging and found that most DIY homemade weed killer sprays all contained the same two basic ingredients: white vinegar and salt. (Side note: I LOVE vinegar and we will definitely be discussing all of it's acidic goodness at a later date!)

After considering the various recipes I saw from others, I made my own trial batch of homemade natural weed killer. Three ingredients (all of which I already had at home). Super easy. And it worked!

Here's what I used:

- One gallon White Distilled Vinegar

- 1 cup Iodized Salt

- a 'One Mississippi' squeeze of Dish Soap

- One gallon Garden Sprayer (for application and storage)

Here's what I did:

1)  I poured out about 16ish ounces of the vinegar into a separate container (you'll add it back later) to make the mixing part of this job easier. 

2)  I added the squeeze of dish soap (I didn't measure because I read a number of recipes that included anywhere from a "dash" to 1/4 cup of dish soap so I kinda figured that this ingredient needn't be precise. Also, I don't think that the dish soap requires any sort of brand specification. Most others I noticed used Dawn but I used Seventh Generation because it's what I already had).

3) I sloshed that container around (keep a hand on your container cap so you don't cause a vinegary calamity!) rather vigorously. 

4)  I added the salt to the container...more vigorous slosh action to allow the salt to dissolve...and then I topped it off with the reserved vinegar.

Once my mixture was well-combined, I transferred my fresh batch of weed killer into a garden sprayer and got busy!

Here are my results:

My "weed carpet" prior to application...

… 24 hours after application...

… 48 hours after...

… one week later! So long suckers :)

A few notes from my DIY natural weed killer spray experience...

… The spray left a "ring" on the surrounding bricks (it left them looking damp and slightly darker than other untreated areas). This went away completely after the first rain but I imagine you could hose it off to accomplish the same thing if you're bothered by this side effect.

… While I found this recipe to be equally as effective as chemical based alternatives, this is a much slower acting potion. It took a full week for the weeds to die completely; but after that time, they pulled with almost no effort so it really did work to kill the roots!

… I will caution that I only used this on invasive weeds that were growing: between pavers and patio bricks, along the base of the garden beds and between sidewalk and driveway cracks. I did not test this mixture's safety when used to kill weeds that are growing in gardens and flower beds. Please test at your own risk!!

To sum it all up: the salt and vinegar based DIY homemade natural weed killer really did work, is free of nasty toxins, and it came in as a significantly less expensive finished product than commercially produced options. With name brand weed killers retailing, on average, at about $18.00, my initial financial investment in my project was about $15.00 (the garden sprayer was $9.99 at Rural King; Iodized Salt was about $0.50 at Aldi; White Vinegar is $2.21 per gallon at Sam's Club; various options available at Dollar Tree for just a buck) and refill batches will only cost about $2.50 per gallon. Awesome!

For me, DIY homemade weed killer spray, was a tried and tested success (yay!) and I definitely will not be purchasing conventional chemical products ever again in the future. Have you tried this recipe? Share your results and any tweaks you may have made in the comments!