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Organic Weed Killer Tips

By Ben Mester

Republish: EasyPublish™
Published: 04Nov2010
Word count: 717
Viewed: 188 time(s)

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An organic weed killer is especially important in certain regions of the United States where it doesn't rain very often. Using chemicals like roundup all year long to kill weeds causes a chemical buildup that keeps growing until a good rain storm finally hits, and then all the chemical buildup from every yard suddenly drains into the sewer system on its way to the ocean. In regions of low rainfall, whenever it does finally rain, beaches and coastline are often polluted for days, and beach goers are advised not to swim. That's pretty sad if you ask me that there can be that much pollution runoff. That's why I've been investigating organic weed killer instead. I helped run a landscaping business in a low rainfall region and constantly had to battle between being efficient and being environmentally friendly. In the end, our customers appreciated the fact that we took a little bit of extra time and energy to help protect the environment and be cautious. There are a few organic household compounds that work pretty well as organic weed killers. The nice thing about these chemicals is that they're generally pretty cheap too.

The basic principle around why organic weed killers work is because they're almost always some sort of acid. Weeds hate acid as do regular plants, but the interesting thing is that not all plants hate acidic soil. Some plants thrive in acidic soil, though weeds rarely ever do. So there's a little trick for you. If you're thinking about planting a garden but don't want a bunch of weeds, plant some acid loving plants, and keep the soil acidic by doing things like using used coffee grounds on the soil. Acidic soil is why you hardly ever see anything growing beneath those varieties of pine trees that drop their needles. Pine needles cause the soil to become acidic, and when you pair that with the overshadowing tree taking up most of the sunlight, you have a very good barrier against weeds.

So what kinds of plants like acidic soil? Here are some common garden plants that are especially acid loving:

Azaleas
Camellias
Blueberries
Gardenias
Hibiscus
Hydrangea
Magnolia

There are many more. The plants are not only beautiful, they also prefer the type of soil that weeds don't generally like. That's why if you're thinking about using organic weed killer, one of the best things you can do is to plant the types of plants that will benefit from an acid loving environment. It's a win win situation. If you're going to use an organic weed killer but don't have acid loving plants, you need to be careful not to use too much because it can change the acidic level of the soil and harm the regular plants. This changing of the pH is only temporary though with most organic weed killers, and definitely in the one we'll discuss next.

Now that you know the pros and cons of organic weed killer and the best environment to use it in, here's a quick explanation of what to use. The best natural herbicide I've discovered so far has been acetic acid. What's acetic acid you ask? Vinegar. Household vinegar is generally a 5% strength acetic acid. It's still effective as a weed killer, but for best results, you'll need something a bit more powerful. If you can find distilled vinegar at 15-30% it will be much more effective as a weed killer. You can generally find stronger distilled vinegar at places that sell lots of horticulture supplies.

The best way to use vinegar as an herbicide is to spray it directly onto the leaves of the weed. Do not spray vinegar on your other plants, even the acid loving ones. Acid loving plants only love slightly acidic soil, not acid on their leaves. The vinegar will kill whatever leaves it touches. The vinegar spray will temporarily raise the pH of the soil it touches, but this effect should wear off in less than a week. Extra strength distilled vinegar really does work wonders and is very biodegradable. It's accepted in most forms by the organic community as a great herbicide. I say "most forms" because some processes of making and distilling vinegar require the use of harmful chemicals and so these forms wouldn't be considered truly organic.

Thanks for checking out this article about organic weed killer. For more information about weed killer, check out my other article on sodium chlorate weed killer.

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