Are you fighting with unwanted plants crowding out your garden's flowers? Well, you might already have the secret weapon to beat them for good! Before you head to the store for some powerful weed spray, look in your kitchen for one of these eco-friendly weedkillers.
Put The Kettle On For Sidewalk Weeds
Boiling water won't just help you cook food, it'll also help you cook plants that pop up between sidewalk cracks and stone steps. Using a pot or kettle, simply boil some water and bring it outside while it's still bubbling hot. Carefully coat any weeds with it and make sure to pour it in between concrete slabs or cracks. This will not only kill plants that have already grown, but also cook any seeds that may be about to sprout.
Boiling water is very intense, so it can't be used for all of the weeds your garden. If you used it carelessly in your yard or flower beds, you could kill your grass and damage the delicate root systems of desirable plants, so be as precise as possible. You should also pour from as low a height as possible to reduce the risk of splashing yourself with scalding water.
White Vinegar Spray Dispatches Problem Plants
White vinegar isn't just for cooking. Its acidic properties make it highly useful as a cleaning agent and weed killer. To dispatch weeds growing in your flower beds, you'll need white vinegar, a spray bottle, and some cardboard.
Fill the bottle with vinegar and use the cardboard to block off weeds from the plants you don't want to kill. Then, use the spray bottle to liberally coat the leaves, stems, and roots of the weeds with vinegar. You may need to repeat this process once or twice depending on the size and resilience of the plant. Be sure to spray unwanted plants on dry days, as this increases the chances of the acid properly soaking in and not being washed off by rain.
Your Pantry May Hold Magic Powders
If working with boiling water is intimidating and you don't have any white vinegar on hand, you can still kill off unwanted plants or stop them from growing with a little magic powder: several dry staple ingredients can actually work overtime as weed killing treatments, including sugar, corn meal, salt, and baking soda.
Sugar, like boiling water, will kill off just about any plant doused with it, including even trees and bushes. It does this by providing a high-energy food source for bacteria and bugs in the soil, which causes their population to boom. Once the sugar is all eaten up, the organisms still need food, so they'll quickly devour the roots of most plants.
Corn meal is a great follow-up to sugar treatments. While it won't kill off any plants on its own, it can serve to stop seeds from sprouting by releasing certain chemicals into the soil. This prevents new weeds from sneaking in while you get the ground ready for your chosen plants.
Salt and baking soda both serve to fatally dehydrate weeds, and you can use them interchangeably. First, wet the plants to make sure the salt or baking soda sticks to them, then liberally coat them with it. Pay special attention to the plant's roots, since these are where it draws in fresh water. Plants that are coated in baking soda or salt should wither and die quickly.
Killing weeds could be as easy as boiling water, spritzing a little vinegar, or sprinkling some magic powder onto unwanted plants. While you may still need professional-strength weedkillers for the most resilient of plants, it's a good idea to look for solutions in your pantry first. You could save time and money using the agents you already have on hand.
If these methods don't work, you can also contact a residential wee control company. Visit http://snydersweedcontrol.com/ to learn more about these services in your area.
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