Homemade Natural Weed Spray Recipe

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Gardening is essential to a sustainable lifestyle. While most of us really enjoy being in the garden, overgrown weeds can make it downright unpleasant. Weeds complete with your plants for nutrients, sunlight and water and they also make the likelihood of stepping on a snake or other critter much more likely. In the homestead garden we like to avoid commercial chemical weed killers as much as possible, but we still need to control the weeds. I have found a great homemade natural weed spray that works great and doesn’t pose a risk to my children.

Find more natural weed control methods here.

Make Your Own Natural Weed Spray

With the Back to Eden Garden method, I don’t need to worry about weeds within my garden bed too much, but I have still been battling them in the walking path and other areas on the property. This quick, easy, budget-friendly weed spray is the perfect safe way to knock these unwanted plants down.

Why Choose Homemade Weed Killer Over Commercial Weed Killers?

This natural weed spray is a preferred choice over commercial options for a few reasons:

Environmentally Friendly: The ingredients in this spray are natural which minimized harm to wildlife and and long-term water & soil damage.
Child & Pet Friendly: You don’t have to worry about your children or pets coming into contact with this weed spray. It wouldn’t even be a big issue if they took a big swig of it.
Budget Friendly: A gallon of this DIY weed killer can be made for about $4.

ingredients for making diy natural weed spray | sprayer, vinegar, salt, soap

Considerations When Making Homemade Vinegar Weed Killer

Killing weeds with vinegar is a great natural way to control unwanted plants in your garden and around the homestead, but there are some things that you should know before spraying.

Homemade Vinegar Weed Spray Considerations:

May Require Multiple Applications: If you are spraying through thick weeds, you may need to spray a couple of times to get them all killed back.
Non-Selective: This vinegar spray will kill any plant that it comes into contact with so be careful when spraying it around your vegetable garden plants. Spray it on the leaves of weeds only.
Salt Overload in Soil: Too much salt in the soil can reduce the beneficial microbial life so try not to spray this weed killer directly into the soil in areas where you plan to grow vegetables, flowers, etc. . Instead, spray it on the leaves of the weeds. However, if you are spraying on a walking path or other area where you want nothing to grow, you can spray directly into the soil to keep weeds from resprouting.
Drift: Use this weed spray on a low-wind sunny day. Wind can cause the spray to drift and kill plants that you are not intending to kill.
Plants May Resprout: If the entire plant isn’t covered in vinegar, then it may resprout. Some plants may also resprout from the root. Because of this, it is recommended to respray as you notice new growth. It is best to use this spray when weeds are young as you are more likely to kill the whole plant in one go when they are smaller.

How Does this Natural Weed Killer Work?

Vinegar: Vinegar is made up of water and acetic acid. The acetic acid is used as a contact herbicide that kills plant cells upon contact. When sprayed directly on leaves, vinegar causes a process called dessication which is essentially the breakdown of cell membranes. After being sprayed the leaves will dry out and the plant will die.

Salt: Salt also dries out plant cells through dessication when applied directly to leaves. When salt is applied to soil, it is absorbed through plant roots causing nutrient deficiencies and disrupting the water content within the plant. Salt can cause soil to become sterile so only spray it on ground where you want nothing to grow. If you are using this spray in the garden bed, spray it directly on leaves and not on the soil.

Soap: Dish soap works in this recipe as a surfactant. It reduces surface tension between the vinegar and salt which helps the solution to stay on the leaves instead of beading and rolling off.

DIY Natural Weed Killer Recipe

This homemade weed spray recipe combines three common household ingredients that are both safe & effective. They are used at a 1:1:1 ratio so you can easily increase or decrease the recipe size as needed.

Ingredients

1 gallon White Vinegar (5-15%)
1 TBSP Dawn Dish Liquid
1 cup Redmond Salt

Instructions

STEP ONE:

Combine the vinegar (at least 5%) and salt in a spray bottle. Mix until the salt is dissolved. I use a 1-gallon sprayer.

STEP TWO:

Once the salt is dissolved, add the dish soap.

STEP THREE:

Spray the mixture onto the leaves of the weeds you want to kill. Be careful not to spray your vegetables, fruits, herbs, or flowers because this spray is non-selective and will kill most plants that it touches.

How to Use Your Homemade Vinegar Weed Killer

For best results, apply your homemade weed spray when the forecast calls for no rain for at least 1-2 days. This will allow the spray to work before being washed off. Try to spray on a day with low wind as well to avoid drift.

Spray the mixture directly on weed leaves covering them thoroughly. If you do not want any plants to grow, you can spray directly into the soil as well.