AFTER

Who knew that $10 worth of wacky weed killing could be controversial? LOOK at that, though. Just look. Weeds? Vanquished. Those are some results.

BEFORE

Remember my burgeoning meadow? This wasn’t even the worst of it, I was a little too embarrassed to show the madness happening behind the garage. Let’s just say there was a forest of weeds (about four feet high).

There are still a few areas that have a dusting of weeds, but these little jerks are checking into the hospice. Death throes and such.

Just to keep reminding folks, my gravel driveway is gigantor. For illustrations sake, our entire house is 1,300 sqft compared to the driveway’s 4,000.

I’m not buying that salt wise what we sprayed over 4,000 sqft of gravel is commensurate with agricultural runoff or road salting in cold climates. Also, it’s totally hard to decipher in my writing sometimes, but when I say “green” in quotes? Total sarcasm. We all can agree that “green” can be overused and inappropriately thrown onto questionable stuff to give everyone the warm fuzzies.

We try to be good around here, but come on, I’m not going to boil water and pour it over our entire driveway. For small areas, yes, but that process would be a nightmare on this large of a scale. We have put plastic coverings down and found it to be less than effective and a total pain to control with the high winds. The Round Up/glyphosate chemical route still freaks me out and is extremely expensive, plus I’m pretty sure Monsanto doesn’t always have my best interests at heart.

The vinegar/salt treatment was super effective and I’m looking forward to finding the super strength vinegar stuff that you guys recommended – I didn’t realize that vinegar could get more vinegary. I am surprised how well the normal household stuff worked, it killed everything in its path, but I’d be wary of spraying the crazy industrial stuff anywhere near plants that want stay alive.

I am terrified of using a blow torch. I just know that I’d light a fence on fire or something.

Of course I don’t recommend salting areas that you actually want to plant in. That’s dumb. Or spreading tons of salt all over the place – because yes – it’s terrible. We were looking for a cheap and effective way to sterilize the dirt that had gathered on top of the weed barrier and between the gravel as well as kill the current weed growth in an area we don’t want anything to grow in. Ever.

We used one of those cheap pump sprayers we had laying around. A good mixture to spray:

• 1 gallon of white vinegar
• 1 cup of table salt
• 1 tablespoon of liquid dish soap (we totally forgot to add this)

I don’t mind mixing it up and spraying on any new weeds to keep things under control until the inevitable summer die off. This was a little experiment undertaken as we move into thinking more about fixing up the landscape. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out and love the low low cost.