Weed Control -- Easy, Effective but PET SAFE

Hi All,

Has anyone found some good effective weed killer products that are pet safe or do you make your own? My particular area is too large for me to maintain by manually pulling (before I get attacked for being lazy) as I just don't have the time.

Last year I tried Weed Off Organic from Wipeout.ie. It was effective but everything started to go green again after a couple of weeks so I found it frustrating so kept upping the dose and buying more.

Was just looking up some options there and see some articles about mixing salt and water? Anyone tried that?

grassylawn

Dont use salt, it will ruin your soil. Possibly your neighbours' soil too if it ends up in their gardens.

Mattock/adze hoe is a lot less work than pulling.

Dunno about weedkiller chemicals.

Harry Palmr

Permeable covers?

CelticRambler

Jjjjjjjjbarry wrote: »

Was just looking up some options there and see some articles about mixing salt and water? Anyone tried that?

Never tried it, but if you take a stroll along any seashore, you'll observe that the Plant Kingdom has no trouble at all coping with salt and water. All you'll do is marginally change the chemical composition of your soil - probably just enough to kill off your sensitive specimen plants, but not enough to get rid of weeds. If the concentration of salt is high enough to do anything to those hardy plants, there's probably just as much of a risk it'll irritate the paws of any pets who walk over it (or eat the coated leaves).

In an effort to be less glyphosate-dependent, I've spent the last year using a flame gun on my courtyard, where I'd like there to be no greenery at all between the cobbles. So far, the results have been considerably less impressive than expected. What I've noticed is that typeof weeds has changed. Whereas before I'd have had a bit of everything, now all the delicate self-seeded annuals and the like have disappeared, and in their place I have tougher, deep-rooted perennials like docks, dandelions, thistles, etc. And if I miss a 4-week re-treatment interval, the clover, viola, alyssum, shepherd's purse, etc, etc, comes back again in the blink of an eye.

I won't be throwing out my glyphosate just yet ...

fiacha

Weed supression fabrics and lots of good quality woodchip mulch. Hit anything that pops up with boiling water. No matter the option you take, it's going to be constant maintenance.

Hillybilly4

How about a flame gun?
https://www.quickcrop.ie/product/sheen-x300-flamegun

grassylawn

Yeah I laid weedproof membrane a couple of years ago and covered it with wood I'd shredded from pruning. Nothing needed since. It had been a huge tabgle of briars and nettles before.

Only specific plants that can tolerate it grow where seawater permeates. If you use enough salt to kill weeds you will damage your soil.

Woodchips

aidonitron

I've tried alot of things but by far the best in my experience has been table salt (25kg bags from musgraves) manually and generously spread by hand to the weeds. Let the rain dilute it and do the rest. Just make sure there isn't heavy rain forecast as that will wash it away. Normal irish summer rain is perfect. Results have been as good as roundup, killing the weeds can take a little longer, especially if it doesn't rain for a while but for me round up and glyphosate are toxic and should be banned and are not an option so this has been a great alternative. I need to do this about every 6 weeks during summer.

looksee

NO. Do not put salt on your garden. Its way more toxic and damaging than any of the sprays.

OscarMIlde

I also imagine salt wouldn't be great for animals, particularly cats if they ingested it by licking themselves.

DayInTheBog

Cardboard covered in woodchip.

Witcher

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123696458#Comment_123696458

Salt…is more damaging than Roundup etc. Well fcuk me I've heard it all.

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123731830#Comment_123731830

How do you think salt breaks down in the soil? Trick question.

looksee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123731830#Comment_123731830

You have indeed. It is toxic in the particular environment of the ground. When Roundup hits the ground it becomes inert, salt builds up in the soil and right enough will damage plants, but also gets into the ecosystem and does damage. If you are comparing sprinkling salt on your dinner with sprinkling Roundup on your dinner, or even handling it, then obviously the Roundup will do harm whereas in modest quantities salt will not, but we are not discussing dinners, we are discussing soil and the ground. It used to be done in warfare, and is still considered a war crime, putting salt on fields so that crops could not be grown.

Water John

Melt salt with hot water. Then add to vinegar and spot spray.

standardg60

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123732151#Comment_123732151

Great post looksee, I'll add that anyone who thinks that salt is harmless should switch to drinking seawater and see how they get on..

deandean

Last year I bought a weed burner, ya know the blowtorch thing. I've been using it this summer to hit weeds growing between paving slabs on the patio. About every 10 days I burn them, and they keep coming back after a week or so. About five cycles of this carry-on at this stage.

Weed burner - useless! I'm going back to Roundup. Of which I bought ten litres a few years back when the idiot Govt scared half the country into stocking up!

looksee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123737326#Comment_123737326

Using a weed burner is pretty much the same as a wildfire passing over the ground. It burns the tops off everything - and yes probably destroys trees - but weeds and plants pop up shortly after with great enthusiasm.

I have weedkillered some overly enthusiastic weeds in my gravel drive that got out of hand before I got to them and now I have lots of dead weeds sticking up through the gravel, I am thinking that burning them may be the way to go, but they are already well dead. The burner has been lying around neglected, along with a canister of fuel, for a few years though, and I am a bit nervous of it!

fiacha

I've used a weed burner (cheap Aldi/Lidl version) around the patio for years and it works very well. You need to make sure that you burn out the base of the plant to kill the root and not just the tops.

Boiling water is great for spot weeding hardy weeds, but not practical for large areas.

Regular manual weeding keeps the lawn / beds semi under control. I do a few minutes of weeding every evening while mooching around the garden before bed. Nice and relaxing !

I tried a diy concoction of vinegar / water and a few drops of washing up liquid before and it did the trick on young plants but the place stank of vinegar for days :).