See here for an updated post on this topic.
Here’s a picture from the other direction in my garden. The blue wheelbarrow is right side up, but in almost the same place as the picture in the post a few days ago. This is the path leading up to my two main plots.
We have these gravel paths all over the garden complex, and don’t have any say in them. The city says we have to have them, and it’s just a rule we have to keep them clear. Weeds in the gravel are really a problem, and it’s a lot of work to dig them out. Every gardener is responsible for the paths in front of their plots.
Many of the gardeners in the complex are not organic, and use Round Up, even though this doesn’t work. This doesn’t stop them of course from needlessly dousing their paths, hoping it might work a little bit someday. I’ll admit, the Round Up does something, at least changing the color of the weeds a bit.
Taking an idea I got from a Mrs. Greenhands a while ago, I’ve decided to start using vinegar on my path. I have the agreement of the gardeners on the two sides of the path to try this. The logic is vinegar makes the gravel too acidic, so weeds won’t grow.
Before anyone eagerly rushes out to try this in your own garden, let me be clear. Vinegar is not healthy for any plant and you can’t make things better by adding lime later. Adding vinegar to your garden will probably ruin it for a long time and make it so nothing will grow. Only use it where you are sure it cannot come in contact with an area you want to use for plants.
I’m not 100% certain I won’t cause problems in the neighboring gardens doing this. I also don’t really have any idea how much vinegar I should be adding.
Has anyone done this before, and do they have any tips for me? At the moment, the vinegar doesn’t seem to be killing the weeds, but it is slowing them down and does appear to be keeping new weeds from becoming established. So far I’ve only been using the vinegar for a few weeks, and I haven’t used that much.
It would sure be nice to offer an alternative to the Round Up!
I’d not heard of the vinegar cure,but I wonder if it might be a good solution for my garden which is paved. I am going the route of container gardening here and using the roof terrace as a tomato nursery, but in the meantime the weeds are coming up between my paving blocks and I was even thinking of using Round-Up myself (I know, it’s awful). I’ll try the vinegar.
Fascinating conundrum. I soak Mike’s feet in vinegar solution to kill fungal issues which come about because he constantly wear socks and shoes.
I think this would work very well if you were to be able to inject it into the root then a small additional amount around the root area. As an alternative, could you lay down something like newspaper, pieces of cardboard, landscape fabric, or black plastic? I’ve been using cardboard “skirts” around trees to kill off persistent, deep rooted weeds. After a year, the skirt is disintegrated and you can replace it with mulch. New weeds will be shallow rooted and easy to remove. This is our result thus far and the experiment has been in process about 18 months. Not conclusive in my opinion, but a decent result thus far.
Hi Jo,
This is a public foot path, so your not allowed to put down anything to cover it.
Do you see as you enter my garden, the gravel path extends into it, but I have covered it there with landscape cloth and straw. I prefer to use mulch for weeds too, and it does sometimes make the roots shallower of those weeds that do survive.
Since making this post, I’ve read the suggestion elsewhere that you use special vinegars with high acidity. I’m still a little afraid of damaging the gardens next to the path, so I probably keep trying normal vinegar.
Never tried vinegar, what we do at home is lay newspaper with the path covering over it. I rarely get any weeds.
In my patio – I poor boiling water into the cracks to kill what’s weeds find a home between the bricks.
Patrick I have no idea about vinegar but I have something else to tell you.
I read some blogs for beekeeping lately (in my language). The beekeepers need the space in front of beehives clean, without weeds. Some of them use salt for this reason and they have no weeds.
Gravel can be worked mechanical to kill the weed. If the gravel is loose, wlaking on it will kill all small weeds. This need to be done regularly. I guess you find the weed at the edges of the path. A weekly raking at the edges might prove less work than spraying vinegar. Vinegar was used for some years some places in Copenhagen, but it ended up affecting the roots of nearby trees after approximately three years. The leaves of the trees turnes very light green, and the trees didn’t grow well. They did survive, as the vinegar treatment was discontinued.
You could look into:
Fatty Acid Herbicides, Acetic Acid Herbicides, Herbicidal soaps, Thermal Weed Control (including boiling water)
I have done this. Vinegar works best if you use it on a hot, dry day. The hotter and dryer the better. I used it last year to kill weeds on my driveway, and in some cracks. As for the amount, I just poured until the soil was wet. My weeds were brown and dead in a few days, except the dandelions, which held up fairly well. I used the boiling water bit for them. You will have to re-apply after rain. It will smell strongly of vinegar. Hope this helps.
I think flame may be the best solution. I just googled “torch weeds” and came across this device:
http://www.flameengineering.com/Weed_Dragon.html
Also, available for purchase on amazon.com
Just be careful to avoid flammable materials. A gravel pathway should be fine.
Hi John,
You’re right, and thanks for the comment. I made another post on this topic later here:
http://bifurcatedcarrots.eu/2011/09/weeds-in-a-gravel-path/
but for some reason never provided a link to it. I guess I just assumed this older post would eventually disappear from search engine results, but that hasn’t happened.
Anyway, I just edited this post above to include a link to the newer version.