Vinegar Weed Killer Tips and Warnings

Recently I published a post about using the vinegar and ultra dawn dish soap formula to kill the weeds and grasses growing in between my garden path stepping stones. I shared this post on Facebook and many of my gardening friends asked questions.

I will be answering these questions here.

Keep your garden weed free with vinegar. Photo of my lily and Iris garden

Why use vinegar and dawn ultra dish soap and not roundup?

White vinegar is an acid and the dawn ultra dish soap is what holds the acid on your weed's leaves and stem. The acid kills the weed but does not kill the earthworms. Roundup is a chemical that kills the weeds to the root and every good garden insect that crosses its path. In addition, the roundup is not safe to use around pets.

How often do you have to apply the vinegar weed killer?

The white vinegar weed kill formula should be used on a hot sunny day. Spray the weed by saturating it with vinegar.  You will see the weed dying back in a few hours, the leaves and stems will turn brown. 

 Now provided your summers are dry then you will not need to reapply, you may have to spot check the area for new weed-grown once a week and treat any new growth with the vinegar.  Now if it rains or the area that was treated with the vinegar formula gets wet from sprinklers, then the formula will be weakened and the weeds will grow back quickly.

Can I use it in my flowerbeds or around trees?

I would not recommend using any weed kill in your flower garden areas for fear that it might come in contact with a plant that you do not want to kill. Know that I have used this weed killer on weeds growing close to a mature Oak tree and had no problems but I would not use it in the same area as a young tree.

This vinegar and ultra dawn soap weed kill do work if used as directed and are not weakened from rain or another water source.

Do I have to buy a brand name for the distilled white vinegar? 

 No brand name is needed in fact I would recommend that you buy Walmart.com Great Value which is the store brand and is always less than other top brands. Buy whatever is on sale as long as it is distilled white vinegar.

Does the vinegar smell last long?

When the vinegar is mixed with the dawn ultra dish soap the smell is weakened and is not as pungent as straight vinegar. I noted that the smell was gone within a few hours.

Those are some of the questions that I was asked, if you have any further questions then please leave a comment and I will reply.

Here are some other products that I have used for controlling weeds in flower beds' learn more here

Weeds Growing in-between Stepping Stones

Removing the weeds that grow in-between the stepping stones has been my  garden project this week.  Know that I started this task by using a hand tool to dig out the roots but soon realized that to complete the 40 foot paths that I would need to work several days.  A hand pull on a project this large would be really hard on the body.

Here are a few photographs of my many garden paths.  All needed to be weeded last week.

Stepping stone with pea gravel and edge stone

Dry set flagstone walkway with pea gravel

Pea gravel path with stepping stones

Cement capstone garden path 

First I thought I would use the lawn trimmer as a quick fix to my problem.  It looks good until it rained two days ago and now the weeds have grown back and the stepping stone path looks awful.

My husband suggested that I use roundup to kill the weeds and I refused to do the chemical compound being harmful to the wildlife.  I realized that I needed something strong to take care of my obnoxious weed problem so I inquired about a formula at my garden club and they gave me a mixture that consisted of plain dawn dish soap, Epsom salt and water.

I followed the instructions given; mix well spray on the weed liberally on a sunny day and it should start to die off within a few hours.  Well I waited two days and the weeds did not die off.   

I went back to digging the weeds out by the roots, and had accomplished several feet when my husband tells me to mix 2 gallons of distilled white vinegar with 2 tablespoons of Dawn ultra (original Dawn the one that is blue color) mix the formula and spray on the weeds on a sunny day.

Husband  said the vinegar is an acid and it is what kills the weeds, the soap is what keeps the vinegar on the the weeds.  I followed his instruction and mixed 8 gallons of vinegar with the dawn ultra dish soap, sprayed on the weeds in-between the stepping stones and within 2 hours they were turning brown.