Vinegar hack to kill garden weeds without using chemicals - but with one key ingredient

Vinegar might be a treat on your chips, but it's not the weapon of choice for tackling pesky garden weeds. While homemade solutions can sometimes take gardeners by surprise with their efficacy against unwanted plants, ordinary kitchen vinegar just doesn't cut the mustard for a more permanent fix.

Gardening expert Larry Hodgson has his say: "Many websites recommend using vinegar as a weedkiller (herbicide) and yes, the typical white vinegar found in your kitchen does have some effectiveness in controlling weeds.

"But it's not a miracle cure. In fact, far from it! I suspect that most gardeners will be a little disappointed with the results."

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Writing on his Laidback Gardener blog, Larry pointed out that kitchen vinegar fails where it matters most – destroying weed roots. Nevertheless, he's not shy to share a top tip for those keen to enhance their weeding tactics.

For an extra kick in fighting those unwanted sprouts, Larry endorses boosting vinegar's potency by mixing in a special ingredient – soap. He asserts that the blend of soap and vinegar allows the solution to better adhere to weeds, increasing the likelihood of weed death, as reported by the Express, reports the Mirror.

Larry's advice is detailed: "To make the herbicide more effective, add a little pure soap, such as insecticidal soap, to the liquid, perhaps one teaspoonful (5 ml) per quart (litre) of vinegar, to help the product stick better to the foliage."

"Many websites further recommend adding salt to vinegar, but you'll then be playing with a much more dangerous product. Remember that salt can sterilize the soil permanently and is certainly not an environmentally friendly weedkiller."

Make sure to spray on a sunny day and this homemade solution is more likely to work in springtime when weeds are just growing. Larry advised: "Spray vinegar on a sunny, dry day and certainly never when it's windy. Ideally, the air temperature should be above 70 F (21C).

"Avoid applying it on surfaces that can be tarnished by acidity and that includes many metallic surfaces including those found on garden furniture." For more mature weeds that need to be removed, Larry suggests using a cleaning vinegar solution with more acetic acid, which will be a much stronger product.

Larry added: "Cleaning vinegar or double strength vinegar (found in the cleaning department of most hardware stores) contains 10 percent acetic acid and you'll find it a more effective weedkiller."

Stronger vinegar with more acetic acid of more than 10 per cent will be stronger, but is a harsher chemical and will need protective goggles and gloves, so it is not recommended.