hopingtohomestead:

Summer is here in many parts of the world and along with beautiful blooms and edibles growing in the garden ugly weeds also manage to rear their  heads. So what’s an organic gardener to do? How do we control those nasty dandelions and other unwanted weeds without resorting to harsh chemicals?  Today I am going to share some natural and safe DIY weed killers for your garden.  Using toxic chemicals in your garden isn’t safe for you, your kids, your pets or the environment. The last thing any vegetable gardener should be doing to spraying hazardous chemicals near the food they are growing to eat! Here are some simple DIY recipes for weed control using products you probably already have in your pantry.


Boiling water
Boil water in the kettle and pour it over the weeds.  It’s really that simple. No chemicals at  all just plain H20. The heat will “cook” the plant to death.

Vinegar
You can use plain white distilled vinegar or apple cider vinegar. It’s the acid in the vinegar that will destroy the weeds. Use the pin point sprayer instead of the mister and aim toward the center of the plant. Be careful to only hit the weed or the surrounding grass will turn brown and die.


 Light starve
This is also known as solarization. Place an object over the weed and it will die from lack of sunlight.  You could place  rocks, newspaper, cardboard or mulch over the area. This method takes longer that other methods but if you have a large garden area that you are trying to prep and get rid of the weeds this may work for you.Check out my post on Lasagna Gardening for details about using this method.

Salt
Make a mixture of ½ cup of salt to 1 gallon or water and pour over the weeds. This method works better for areas such as cracks in the driveway since the mixture will kill anything it touches.

Elbow grease
Yes, good old fashioned elbow grease. You’re going to have to pull up the dead weeds anyways so you could just cut to the chase and start digging things up. Just make sure you pull all the roots up or your weeds will just pop back up.

Not all weeds are bad. Did you know dandelion is actually a very nutritious plant full of vitamins? You can make wine, salad and tea from dandelion. You can check out my post on Dandelion Root Tea here and Dandelion Salad here  But since many weeds are a nuisance or non edible give some of the methods above a try before you reach for the Round Up. What are your best tips for natural weed control?

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