Weeds and vinegar

[Obelixx]

Can anyone help?  I have heard that vinegar makes a good weed killer.  Does anyone know what strength to use - 100%, 50% solution etc?  I have moss and weeds sprouting again between cobble pavers and don't want to use heavy chemicals if I can avoid it.   It's too big an area for a hands, knees and knife treatment.

Failing that, can anyone recommend a good flame thrower that's easy to use?  I'm a bit of a pyrotechnic..........

[Obelixx]

[calendula]

you can but try with the vinegar, maybe use a spray bottle on a small area and those handy kitchen flamers for crisping up brulees could be useful for burning off weeds although you'd have to bend down a lot - the true horticultural flamers are really expensive

[Robert_Brenchley]

Use it very sparingly; you could mess up the pH of your soil if you use too much of it.

[Georgie]

I tried full strength vinegar on perennial weeds in my driveway and it had no effect at all.  Since then I've strimmed them and used a weed wand (c£20) about once a week.  They grow back, but less vigorously each time.  I'm told that eventually they will give up the ghost.  I do hope so!

G x

[Sparky.p]

Hi

I use table salt on weeds on my pathways as I have a dog so it is completely safe

Just wet the weeds or after rain pour the salt on to the crown and a few days later it turns brown and can be brushed away

Sparky.p

[Hyacinth]

Hi

I use table salt on weeds on my pathways as I have a dog so it is completely safe

Just wet the weeds or after rain pour the salt on to the crown and a few days later it turns brown and can be brushed away

Sparky.p

A client of mine had poured salt on her patio cos she'd read that it killed moss, prior to me arriving to jetwash it. It made the place like a skating rink and we teetered and tottered our way to the hose, holding each other up, so that we could wash it off. ::)

;D

[Obelixx]

The area concerned is about 20 metres by 4 which is a 1900ish old cobbled road that used to run past the house but was supplanted by a later diversion over a new bridge.  The second area is a cobbled terrace 6m x 6m and then there's all the gravel paths between the raised veggie beds.   I have used glyphosate but the pesky weeds come back.  I don't want to use the really strong stuff that kills weeds and stops others germinating as it's really bad for the environment.

Anyone got any bright ideas or do I just get out the glyphosate again?

[Robert_Brenchley]

I wouldn't use glyphosate myself, but it's probably less damaging than the amount of vinegar it would probably take to kill the weeds. That's basically dilute acetic acid, which isn't something I'd want in my soil!

[Obelixx]

Thanks for the feedback all.  I've used a glyphosate weedkiller with added moss treatment which should be fine as it's all cobble pavers and no soil to contaminate.   I decided I couldn't cope with the likely pong of all that vinegar.

[wahaj]

i've used it in the backyard where it's all paved over. i mixed 2 parts salt to 1 part vinegar and mixed it in 10 parts boiling water.

worked really well. probably not best to use it around other plants though.