There are numerous ways to kill weeds. Some, like buying herbicides can be costly while others such as uprooting weeds can be time consuming. Much as weeding the garden yourself doesn't cost a thing, what of when weeding will expose the roots of you vegetables and get them to die? At such times, the solution could be vinegar. Depending on it's concentration, it can kill any small plant. So when using it, apply it on undesirable plants/weeds only.
I have tried to use vinegar to kill small pieces of grass that appear in the cracks of my sidewalk. I think, perhaps, I didn't use enough because the vinegar seemed to have zero effect on the grass. When you say depending on its concentration, does that mean you are mixing it with water?
In the UK we don't seem to have the super strength vinegar that they have in the US. I have heard of cleaning strength vinegar which is supposed to be strong enough to clean the most stubborn stains. But this doesn't appear to be available in the UK. I would like to know if anyone in the UK has come across this strong vinegar because I would like some for cleaning and weeding. Somehow I don't think the vinegar I put on my chips will do the job.
I am not aware of different strengths of vinegar but I have used vinegar to kill plants. It is a temporary situation, I pour the vinegar on the weeds followed by some boiling hot water, the plant dies but will grow back later, sometimes pulling the weed up after the plant has died helps to stop it from growing back.
I recently read up on the different strengths of vinegar, but after reading it, I will stick with the strength I can buy at Walmart and other stores. The stronger stuff can burn skin, and be a danger to eyes and other body parts, and since I'm clumsy, I'll refrain from using that. I have had some success recently with a concoction I made and used on large weeds. I think they're actually crabgrass, which is notoriously difficult to eradicate. I mixed up dish soap, white vinegar, and hot water. I made sure it was soapy and bubbly by putting the soap and vinegar in first, then turned on the hot water, and used the sink sprayer to mix it all up. The soap helps the liquid cling to the weeds, which helps kill them. I read that the mixture sucks the liquid out of the weeds, killing them. It did appear to dry them out, so I do believe that is the case. I drenched the weeds and left them. Letting them bake in the sun with the mixture on them helps, as well. This worked really well with the weeds in the driveway cracks. Also, it hasn't rained in a while, and I haven't watered, so the ground is dry as well, which might have predisposed them to drying out. I ran out of white vinegar and tried apple cider vinegar, but that didn't seem to work as well. Once they dry out, they're pretty easy to pull up, and since mine are huge, they take up a lot of ground space, so hopefully removing them won't take forever.
I think vinegar is best for cleaning the sink. As with killing the weeds, I guess it can serve the purpose but I'm not so sure of what weeds the vinegar can kill. With the strength of vinegar, you can test it by putting some drops on the leaves. And when the leaves would wilt then that would be effective in killing the weeds. However, it can also kill the plants.
