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Thursday - March 08, 2012
From: Georgetown, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Invasive Plants, Seasonal Tasks
Title: Vinegar as a Herbicide
Answered by: Brigid & Larry Larson
QUESTION:
When can you use vinegar on weeds to get rid of them.ANSWER:
Depending on my attitude at the time – almost anytime and never.
Here’s the deal: Almost anytime because you should consider it a broadcast herbicide. Put it on plants, any plants, and they’re history [in theory].
Never because it’s a broadcast herbicide and not all that good as one. The Wildflower Center is big on natural solutions, and it is natural, but a broadcast herbicide will kill anything it contacts.[Including all your desired plants that are accidentally in the way. Murphys Law insists that they will die a horrible death while the weed will just shake it off.].
Here is a great previous Mr Smarty Plants answer that puts a little more detail into my comment that it is not a very good herbicide and better explains why our preferred approach doesn’t include broadcast herbicides.
Here is a Mr Smarty Plants answer on the topic of invasive week control with some more detailed advice.
And, I found three more answers like this where vinegar wasn’t such a good solution, this answer points to some websites with approaches for invasive weed control.
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