Weeds love to grow everywhere they can. They grow on driveways, through cracks or gaps in concrete and paving, or in empty garden beds. Rather than going about attacking those pesky weeds with harsh chemicals, discover some methods of weed control that are kinder to the environment and people.

So, what is the best way to kill weeds without chemicals?

Let’s find out.

Killing Weeds Without Chemicals

There is one tried and true method of weeding without chemicals, and that’s a mixture of regular household vinegar and salt. If you have a weed sprayer, mix 4 litres of vinegar with one cup of table salt and spray directly onto the weeds, just as you would with a chemical weed killer. With this method, you are effectively weeding without digging the weeds out of the ground. They’ll die off after a few days.

For the drinkers out there, you might not be too keen on this next idea, but vodka mixed with a little dishwashing liquid is also highly-effective when poured or sprayed onto weeds. The vodka method works best on weeds exposed to direct sunlight and is not as effective in shady areas of the garden.

A very simple method, and one that’s far cheaper than spraying your favourite vodka onto weeds, is to simply douse them in boiling water. This burns the weeds and causes them to die. It’s a particularly useful weed control method for those little cracks in the pavement and at the base of walls. The boiling water really soaks into the gaps and gets to those tiny weeds.

A slightly more hazardous weed killing method is to use a flame. When the heat of the flame is applied to the weed, it inflicts fatal injuries on the plant that it won’t recover from. A flame weeder is like a small tank of butane gas with a nozzle attached. This setup makes it quite easy and safe to use the flame weeding method.

Then there is the manual digging method to remove the weeds from the soil completely. There is a lot more bending over and hard labour involved in digging out weeds, but obviously also very effective.

Some Weed Prevention Ideas

An effective way to discourage weeds from growing in the first place is to cover your garden beds in the mulch. With the soil not getting any sunlight due to the covering of mulch, it’s much harder for any weeds to get a hold and grow.

Corn gluten meal (a corn milling byproduct) is useful when sprinkled onto lawns and garden beds. It has properties that are known to retard weed germination and growth. It’s non-toxic and completely organic and is not harmful to people or pets.

Try planting some very dense gardens, with loads of plants taking up the entire space. With so much competition, it’ll be almost impossible for weeds to take hold and grow.

Talk To The Experts About Weed Control

At Hort Culture, we live and breath gardens and we’ll be able to offer you the best weed control processes available. One of our core products is Slasher. It’s an organic herbicide which is extremely effective in eradicating weeds. Non-organic Round-Up is also used when required for those stubborn weed problems.