vinegar and disk soap weed killer is not working

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Damn things see to enjoy being sprayed.

What am I doing wrong?

I am using the 5% stuff. Can't find the 20% stuff

Reply to
T
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I have only found the 20% on line, Amazon has it, Walmart has a version that is 1% higher, don't know how it works. Seems that one gallon of 20% sells for about US$25 wherever you get it. Generally called cleaning vinegar from what I see.

Reply to
George Shirley

dunno, some plants have a waxy layer on them and so such approaches do not work well.

smother it instead. cardboard is easy to find and put down. eventually breaks down into worm food. use the plainest kinds you can get (least ink on them). a few layers overlapped at the seams will do in about any weed and if they don't work the first time the second round usually will.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

I see you can even buy pure acid available on line:

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We all know that you can drink a bit of vinegar but the pure acid would put you in the hospital.

Reply to
Frank

Using only vinegar is better than combine with soap. There are 3 vinegars you should use. You can check here for more information: The field '1bb8feffed6e2f161d9fb34c1b4cda2b' was not recognised.

Reply to
Wolf Phan

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

would you resend?

I found if I pour straight 6% on the weed that it messes up the weed, but does not kill it. It is also really expensive to use a cup of vinegar per weed

I got some 20% coming from Amazon.

What is your opinion of adding salt to the mixture?

Reply to
T

Great idea if you want to permanently poison your garden - old fashioned traditional agro-terrorism to sow the opposition's fields with salt and starve anyone they didn't kill directly. Pure idiocy otherwise.

Reply to
Ecnerwal

I've had a major part of my garden under plastic for several weeks now to kill out the grass . I realized very early this spring that tilling was just burying the grass seed to sprout later . Last year's heavy straw mulch helped a lot , that in combination with the plastic might give me a chance to get ahead of it and other unwanted growth . Of course that isn't an option with the strawberry beds , I'm planning a vinegar douche there , in hopes that it will give the strawberries a chance to shade out some of the weeds/grasses .

Reply to
Terry Coombs

According to our gardening gurus

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a cup, 250ml, to a litre of vinegar does the trick they also offer some other tips, only one of which I have tried, Sheet solarisation, and living in the West of Australia with plenty of sun and very little rain I found this to be very effective.

Mike

Reply to
Bloke Down The Pub

T wrote: ...

spray it on the leaves with a mister. should not need that much.

as idiotic as spraying weeds with vinegar. if you got time to go around dumping or spraying you got time to pull it or smother it IMO.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

Terry Coombs wrote: ...

it can take a few years to kill off the energy stored in roots and the soil seed bank can be viable for many years (varies by species).

mulch and cardboard layers will last a few years.

some plants need warmer soil to sprout or grow well but once they are up and growing you can go along and mulch around them and put cardboard in the rows and then mulch on top of that.

yes, by keeping sunlight and warmth from the top layer of the soil you've reduced the number of seeds that will be able to germinate.

my strawberry beds get mulched with wood chips and hand weeded, but after a few years they need to be renovated anyways. after a few seasons i selectively smother about

1/3 of the plants and then let the surrounding plants grow into the mulch. by the time the mulch has broken down enough and the new plants are established the old ones can then be smothered. i use a mix of wood chips and partially decayed wood chips.

i also grow cover crops to help shade the plants during the hot summer months in spots. these then become mulch. beans/peas/soybeans/buckwheat, not too thick.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

Hi Songbird,

Some blabbing and a question on the bottom for you.

Since I let my back lawn go to seed last year in hope of replacing it with a garden, I now have weeds I never knew existed.

On of them looks like a small shade tree and it pulls really easily. The rest suck to the ground, like the dandelions that won't die. I have to dig these up with a shovel, which is no easy task considering you can make some really awesome bricks out of my soil.

My soil isn't soil anyway. I know the guy who graded my property. My back yard is 20 feet down from top soil. It is basically rocks and decomposed sandstone (like decomposed granite, only way, way uglier). If you strike the ground to hard with a shovel, it literally sparks.

How some of these weeks managed to bore their roots down in the stuff, I will never know. And, you can only cut their tops off. Then they grow right back and back and back. So vinegar and soap it is, less the salt. Cussing at them doesn't work either.

The back yard is too big to cover in cardboard or plastic, especially with the high winds we have. (Two category one hurricane force winds last January.) Rock gardens work with visqueen.

Also, this is one for you. My blue garlic comes out pink. I was told that this is because my soil is very alkaline (verified by the local nursery lady.) I little vinegar may help. Your thoughts?

-T

Reply to
T

one

weeds

Reply to
T

Vinegar's effect is pretty much like cutting the tops off - dubious for really killing the whole plant, other than repeat applications eventually exhausting the roots, or for tender young weed seedlings. Vinegar's effect on the pH of the soil would be fleeting at best. So it's pretty valid to say that if you have time to pour a cup of vinegar on the plant, you have time to chop the plant off with a hoe to similar effect.

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Too late for you now, but letting weeds go to seed is NOT what you want to do when "in hope of replacing it with a garden" - you want to mow the heck out of it right up until you turn it under or bury it with good soil.

Roots can push into some pretty inhospitable soils. Depending on your pH range, you might select a suitable cover crop/green manure, till the mess, and plant the cover crop, precisely for the beneficial effect of the roots (as well as the eventual decomposing of the top mass, and the shading out of weeds.) If your pH is less than 8.2 (you said it was alkaline, so the lower range of 6.0-6.3 won't apply to you) alfalfa can do wonders as part of a "green manure" program, and will shove roots amazing distances downward.

Vast quantities of "brown manure" (up to and including sheet composting

6-12" deep) will also help (both to build soil and to buffer pH.)

You might find this a worthwhile read WRT alkaline soils:

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Depending on your free lime situation or lack thereof, sulfur may not or may help with your pH (depending, of course, on exactly what it is and if it needs help - start with a soil test.)

Reply to
Ecnerwal

weeds are free organic matter, if they will grow where nothing else will they can then be chopped and used for other things, like building mulch or topsoil fertility.

rock gardens are just fine ways to cover an area. we have plenty of those here ourselves.

also, if you do not need it for anything is there any reason to do anything with it at all? we have some land here on the other side of the large drainage ditch. i'd like to put some fruit trees back there but it's so far back there and hard to get to right now that it's just growing small shrubs and trees now. i'll need to cut it all back in the next few years if i don't want it to turn into woodland/trees.

if you are just going to grow a few plants, i would bring in some good topsoil add some composted cow manure and any other organic materials i could scrounge up.

make sure the area is leveled and drainage is good and also make sure there is a wind break to protect against the drying winds.

that will solve the poor soil problem and your pH will be corrected.

for the rest of the area as you can scrounge free organic materials and chop and drop whatever weeds that grow to get your topsoil developing environment going. as most of the processes of forming topsoil involve moisture it is better to have things piled deep enough to preserve moisture than to scatter your efforts widely. you might also be able to scrounge free fill that is better than what you have. even if you have to do it a few yards at a time...

as you get an area covered and able to absorb and store moisture then it will support worm and other soil community creatures (you may need to innoculate the area with soil from a healthy area). these build topsoil and support plant life. your pH will change as more organic matter is added.

it's just a matter of scale, what you want to put into it, how much money you want to spend, and how much you're willing to be patient while nature does some work for you.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

Actually, I let the lawn go to seed. The weeds stayed behind. They were always there, just crowded out

Thank you. I have some reading to do!

Reply to
T

Thank you. I am wondering where to get some cow poop. We have lots of cows about, but I haven't seen anyone selling it.

I got in late last night. I put my headset on and cut a four foot wide swath through the weeds. When I am done picking them and they dry out a bit, I am planning on digging them into holes that I will eventually plant zukes in.

Here is an interesting observation. I think the weeds were always there in my lawn. When the grass dies, the weeds stayed.

Reply to
T

We've had good luck in asking about getting the cow manure and shovel it yourself into a trailer or pick-up. Worked for us for many years. There is a compost called "Black Cow" available at Lowe's. Now that we basically live on the outskirts of Houston, TX that's where we get our manure. Works well.

The smaller you cut the weeds the faster they rot. I usually run over them with the mower two or three times and it gets smaller each time

Weeds are much hardier than grass. We are pestered with dandelions and nut grass, takes patience and finger strength to get the !@#$% things out of the ground. Wife enjoys it so I let her take the lead on weed pulling. She lived further out in the country than I did before we married.

Reply to
George Shirley

T wrote: ...

may not be around easily found if all the cattle are free range and no dairies. the home depot option is fine for small amounts needed if you are doing small patch amending.

worms/worm castings are good too and you can use those weed scraps as part of the food.

you'll want some green stuff in there too, get it in a few weeks before you put the plants in. if you do a few layers deep alternating green stuff, brown stuff and some dirt, topsoil and composted cow manure you'll have a nice start. keep it damp (not needed to be super soggy).

there is usually some remaining seeds in almost any soil unless it has been sterilized in some manner. the seeds of some plants will last quite a long time (especially in the more arid climates). i heard that crab grass seed can last 75yrs... i don't much care for lawns/grass and everything being even and perfect. a mulching mower and frequent trimming when the wet/growing season is on will select for plants that can tolerate that sort of treatment. good enough for me until i can get rid of the mower entirely.

for very hard soils i'd just go up top with hay bales and use them to frame a small area and plant the zukes into a mix of topsoil and composted cow manure or the worm castings. the hay bales will eventually break down and turn into humus. they have more weed seeds than straw bales, but i like having green stuff eventually rotting. some people mulch with straw, we usually have wood chips. when those rot they turn into prime humus. if you can find anyone trimming trees and grinding them up they are often happy to deliver a truckload if they happen to be in your area, just ask.

because i want woody materials to last longer rather than rot fast i don't want things shredded too finely. some larger chunks are good, they help hold moisture. as a top mulch i want fairly large chips or even have used pieces of bark to cover in between plants (sometimes with cardboard underneath them).

really, it doesn't matter what exact organic materials you can find or grow, most of will break down into humus eventually if you have moisture/rains and the soil critters to help things out (and fungi too).

songbird

Reply to
songbird

George Shirley wrote: ...

hahaha...

we have areas where we've never weeded. the rabbits seem to selectively eat the weeds and leave most of the grass alone. we just mow it once in a while with a mulching mower so there is no raking involved.

there is a few areas that are crab grass invaded but those are all patches that exist because Ma sprays herbicides and it leaves bare soil that the crab grass will get going in too easily. i try to keep them weeded if i can, but i can't always keep up so it's just what it is. if i stay longer term all the grass will be turned into gardens and the mower will go away. i can trim some areas with the hedge trimmer or a string trimmer (with a cutting blade) as needed.

alfalfa is a good crop for green manure (free N fertilizer).

songbird

Reply to
songbird

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