An old DIY but new to ne: Vinegar weedkiller,

[UTUSN]

Almost always, the home remedies haven't worked for me - am looking at YOU-snails, the beer in the saucer and even commercial powder. Didn't have much hope for this one, but tried it once so far and it seemed to work within a couple of days. This homemade thing after about a year of buying the cheapest weedkiller several times per year.

My need for something? A "devil's strip" of grass to mow, with traffic whizzing/roaring by, inches away, while I'm wrestling a machine that can roll me right into the slaughter. Good people out there, but enough *horrible* ones who honk the horn to startle me, have thrown beer cans in front of the mower, all the while whizzing/roaring by. After years of this, the "solution" has been to weedkill every living blade of anything there. Turned on to this from a neighbor who strips his alley this way. Yeah, you can readily imagine that my strip of dead stubble is not attractive, but I say neither are the horrible specimens of human behavior.

********QUOTE*******

https://lifehacker.com/this-diy-weed-killer-is-safe-for-your-kids-and-pets-1848846558

This DIY Weed Killer Is Safe for Your Kids and Pets
Kill weeds without contaminating your soil and save some money while you're at it.

....
DIY your own pet- and kid-safe herbicide
If prevention and heat fail to take care of your problem, you may need to use a weed killer. While you can buy herbicides at a garden store, you may want to avoid using a weed killer that will affect local wildlife or persist in the soil and pose a danger to your pets and kids—so why not make your own safer weed killer that will have milder effects on animals and people and will break down with time so it doesn’t permanently affect your solid quality? Doing so also costs less than going with the common hardware store variety.

Homemade weed killer is made with white vinegar mixed with salt and soap. One gallon vinegar to one cup of salt and one tablespoon of dish soap is the most common formulation. If this isn’t strong enough to tackle your infestation, you can also get gardening-strength vinegar.

Be careful when using this home-made herbicide, as it is an indiscriminate killer of flora, meaning it will kill any plants it comes in contact with—this isn’t a good solution for grass growing between your rows of tomatoes, but it will work well on a gravel path or under a deck. Once applied, this formulation is relatively safe for kids and pets, but it’s still best that they don’t consume it, so keep it out of reach all the same.

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[Scrivener7]

1. I'm currently using it on a stubborn patch of poison ivy that is creeping into my

raised community garden. It requires repeated spraying, but it does seem to be killing the beast.

My problem is that I can't get to the base of the poison ivy because of overgrowth. So I have to just keep treating the creep.

The commercial herbicides are so terrible. I think they would be easier, but I just can't bring myself to use them.

[Lochloosa]

3. If you can cut it back just a little, spray the ends of the cut.

I've found this works much better on vines. It allows the solution to get "ingested" by the vine.

[Scrivener7]

4. Thank you! I can only reach some of them, but I'm definitely going to do this.

Do you keep the tool you used to cut it? Do you have an effective way to clean the urushiol off it?

ETA: I live in an apartment so I'll need to store the tool inside my home if I do keep it after cutting the poison ivy with it.

[Lochloosa]

6. It's oil based, so I would use acetone to was it off with.

Do this outside. It's flammable.

[Scrivener7]

7. Thank you again!!!

[2naSalit]

2. K&R

Just what I need right now! I don't want to resort to commercial weed killers.

[blm]

5. Thanx pal.

[central scrutinizer]

8. You can buy 30%, even 45% vinegar for this purpose

Regular white vinegar is 5% and works okay. I use it on moss that grows on my cement patio.

[UTUSN]

9. I used the 5%. Also the cheapest salt no bells/whistles. Forgot to add the dishsoap & it worked.

[central scrutinizer]

10. I don't use salt or soap, just 30% vinegar

I do wait for a spell of dry weather so it doesn’t immediately get washed off or diluted. A tiny shot will kill anything

[UTUSN]

11. Do you have to reapply over time? (besides the washed-off part)

[central scrutinizer]

12. I use it mostly on moss on parts of my deck

That aren’t under the roof. The moss grows during the rainy winter. Then in spring I spray the moss. It dies and turns brown in a couple days. It still takes a stiff brush to remove it from the exposed aggregate deck surface. But it stays clear until the next winter.

[central scrutinizer]

14. I hire a guy to remove the moss from my roof each year.

He uses vinegar in a backpack sprayer. He waits for a favorable weather forecast. Sprays the moss then comes back a week later and brushes the dead moss off. I live in Oregon and we get a lot of rain so moss is a yearly nuisance.

[PortTack]

13. Have used vinegar, a higher concentration for a few years now. Really works!

[ProfessorGAC]

15. Yeah, Sure!

There is no sound chemical reason vinegar would affect weeds more than lawn grass.
Commercial weed killers biodegrade in soil. The problem isn't their use. It's OVERUSE, which unfortunately happens a lot.
At proper dosing, lawns are safe after application once a decent rain happens, or a few waterings.
99% of these DIY remedies are snake-oil.

[UTUSN]

16. Where I go wrong in replying to some posts is to react to the *tone* instead of later cooler head.

1- I duly noted my initial wariness of this and many past DIY remedies, and 2- my apparently successful experiential trial with this one.

3- Other posters noted their own successful experiences - specifically with this vinegar thing, none attacking the commercial stuff per se.

*** Some hard won lessons I've tried to live by on this board, unfortunately not consistently enough, are: Not to give advice when it's not asked for, and to stay away from threads enthusiastic about subjects I'm NOT in agreement with (viz., Brit royalty, jazz, snooty things) and either skip away without a word and let them have their own fun and/or go start my own oppositional thread.

That said, my 1, 2, 3, here are NOT "advice", am positing what *I* do, for taking or leaving. In the cooler head department I see that you seem to be more informing of and defending commercial products, despite debunking this specific topic, but the initial tone was off-putting nonetheless and I won't have anything further to engage about.