Many "wives tales" abound. I have not tried any of these but they certainly sound plausible: Vinegar/Water solution Rock Salt/Water solution Combine one ounce Gin, one ounce liquid soap and one ounce vinegar and fill the rest of a 32 ounce sprayer with water.

Here is some great data for anyone who wants to try to stay away from harmful and very, very toxic synthetic herbicides. I should mention this: Aerate the yard. There are machines that "poke holes into the ground". Often, the machine looks like a rolling drum (which is filled with water to give it weight), that has spikes or tubes protruding around it. It is motor driven, because the weight is too much to push. I kid you not, it can make a dramatic difference in the health of your lawn. Healthy soil results in fewer weed problems. I have personally done this and have seen great results...and for the longterm. Allowing the soil to breathe promotes beneficial microbe action which helps to utilize the nutrients of the soil. This step alone can conquer a hard to control weed problem. Lawns really green up with this action. Get ahold of 10% vinegar (not the 5% that you often see in the grocery stores). You can also use 20%, but it costs more and the results may not be worth the difference. Put in an ounce of orange oil (citrus oil) along with a teaspoon of liquid soap. (Avoid the "germicide" type soap products as they are no good for your yard, much less putting that toxic substance on your own skin.) [Orange oil comes from the oils of citrus fruits. TKO is a commercial product, but there are places that sell orange oil, especially organic gardening centers. Orange oil, by the way, is a great cleaner and solvent and ant/bug killer. It is all natural. Many products now contain orange oil along with their chemicals.] So, what you end up with here is this bottle of high acidic vinegar with a bit of orange oil and liquid soap. When you spray it or pour it on a weed on a hot and sunny day, it will burn the weed. Often, the weed will fry in a few hours. Yet, it doesn't hurt your yard or plants or trees like so many commercial chemicals out there. Pulling, digging weeds also works. Ha! Here is another remedy: Sugar. Pour sugar on plants that you want to kill. Sugars get microbes into high gear; that is why teeth rot from sugars. The sugar actually improves the health of your soil long term, but will cause so much microbe action that the plant/root will overload and die. This is a great way to kill off stubborn thickets or vines which you keep trimming back. Actually, adding dried molasses (this can be found a feed stores) to your lawn and garden at 20 pounds per thousand square feet will do a lot to improve the overall health of the soil. Surprisingly, it is not a magnet for pests, but because of the stimulated microbe action will deter pests (both harmful insects and weeds) in the longrun. You can add some hot chili pepper or minced garlic to your batch to ward off the very few bugs or animals which may be attracted to it. A heavy application of dried (or wet) molasses can be used to "burn" an area. Powdered cinnamon bark has been used to help control crabgrass. One way to "burn" an area and have fertile soil in the future is to put down a heavy coat of bat guano. When the grass grows in over the area a few months later or even next year, it will really be green. Another trick is to cover an area that you want to "knock off" with newspaper or cardboard. Earthworms will love the paper product as it decays. This probably won't work to get rid of bermuda grass, because of its roots. A fantastic preemergent is corn gluten meal. This is the protein part of the corn. It is about $26 for 50 pounds. When applied, it acts like a fertilizer and will green everything up, but not burn your yard because it is slow release of nitrogen. Any existing weeds will also green up, but this will kill any weed (or grass) seeds lying in the area. Your yard will smell like a barn, but it works great as a routine to kill seeds from weeds. The corn gluten, remember, is often used in animal foods...so spread thinly if you have dogs or racoons; otherwise they will be licking up the small piles. NOTE: If you are using synthetic fertilizers or chemical weed killers, it makes many of these natural solutions much less effective. Also, the area is toxically scarred...measures would need to be done to cancel out or remove the toxic chemicals and the out-of-balance of minerals. Salt is not a good idea in the long-run. It isn't that great for the health of your soil. In fact, it will ruin your soil's health. Synthetic fertilizers actually poison the soil by build-ups of salts. WEEDS Most weed problems exist because of the health of the soil. Healthy soil with microbe action determines the health of plants. Plants and organic vegetables can get their proper nutrients. That is why organic foods are so nutritious. Weeds tend to try to grow in soils that are lacking healthy conditions. You will probably notice that areas that are a problem...where weeds are growing abundantly...have poor soil health. Of course, weeds will pop up where they have seeds. But if one focuses on the natural health of the soil, a lot of weed problems can be eliminated. Mulch bare spots heavily. Cover areas of weak soil health with compost. I will repeat this point...compost will help balance the health of the soil and give it life. There are natural amendments that one can add to help in the composting and microbial action and mineral/nutritional health of soil. HEALTHY SOIL IS A KEY TO CONTROLLING PESTS AND WEEDS. SIDENOTE: THE HARMFUL TOXIC EFFECTS OF PESTICEDES AND HERBICIDES ARE PROVEN SCIENTIFICALLY TO OFTEN BE PASSED DOWN FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION. This means that your exposure to a herbicide can certainly cause a nervous disorder or hormone disorder or organ disorder in your grandchildren or great-grandchildren. No kidding. It is scientifically proven after several years of research and testing. And, of course, this will not make headlines because of the strong influence of the chemical manufacturers. WSU Center for Reproductive Biology: http://www.crb.wsu.edu/ Michael Skinner's Web site: www.skinner.wsu.edu WSU Research News and Features: http://researchnews.wsu.edu/ HERBICIDES I can not emphasis enough how toxic synthetic, chemical herbicides are. They are real poisons. Many are shades of gray from Agent Orange (e.g. 2-4-d). Atrazine and some of the other chemicals used by Scotts (and their subsidiary, Miracle Grow) cause all kinds of harm. Atrazine changes the sex of frogs (if they live), but even worse is the incremental damage it does to humans. Children and pets are very prone to getting it in their system...and it doesn't take much exposure. Less than one part per billion changes the sex of frogs from male to both male and female...one probably breathes this amount when they load the weed-n-feed in the spreader. Get just a touch on your skin and it absorbs into the body. Atrazine is a photo-sensitizer to plants and also to humans...you could "break-out". Dogs are twice as likely to die of cancer. The number of physical ailments that result from exposure to Round-Up (by the way, Monsanto killed around 30,000 people one day in India because of one of their pesticide plants) or weed-n-feed products goes on and on. Most are often diagnosed as routine diseases or ailments, when in reality they are a result of a person being predisposed to these extremely toxic chemicals. In other words, a person may have headaches or allergies or kidney stones or catch the flu easily as a result of having these chemicals in their system. It only takes a very small amount of these chemicals to cause an effect on a plant or in a human. Cancers as result of herbicides is actually very prolific, but hard to "prove" given the current scenarios. Many people have feelings of anxiety or nervousness or "hyper___" and explain it away by some incident going on such as "bills to pay", when in fact, these feelings could be "excited" or prompted by toxins in the body. The chemical weed killers are hell on a person's well-being. What is more appalling is the fact that these big chemical companies actually have data and internal memos about the disastrous effects of their products, they often collaberate with fellow chemical companies (including medicinal drug companies which manufacture drugs to combat these chemically prompted diseases and ailments), and they suppress the findings, influence the political arena and even overturn EPA recommended bans by their influence. As an example, the makers of Prozac have affiliation with many of these toxins.

All i use is Vinegar,three squirts and that weeds packing.

The USDA has done a formal study using vinegar in various strengths and found that the kind you find in a grocery store has mixed results depending on how you use it; it does kill weeds, but you need to apply it properly like anything else. Dry, hot weather and consistent application to all visible parts of the weed are important. Application followed by rain or watering obviously won't work as well. Any product that has 20% acetic acid strength is not recommended by the USDA for home gardeners; this is used by the railroads to kill weeds that might overrun the tracks, but that's a commercial application. Any 20% acetic acid product you find in your garden center that has a mention of use as a herbicide is not approved by the USDA for home use. Look for vinegar for pickling for a higher acetic acid content if you have particularly stubborn weeds. I've seen it mentioned, and it seems logical, to trim all leaves and shoots short to get at the root of the weed; orange oil and dish detergent seem to be the most commonly suggested additives, but the USDA study used straight vinegar without additives.

The following recipe is at base 2 forms of acid so if you really soak the ground well nothing will grow for months. Be carefull you only spray what you want to kill. Put 4 oz lemon juice in 1 quart spray bottle. Fill to top with white vinegar (10%-20% acididity is best). Shake well. It will burn through any weed or plant

The reason everyone says to add liquid soap is because it makes the vinegar stick to everything, just try the two sprays and you'll see what I mean

I just mixed a spray bottle of 1 cup salt, 1 tablespoon dish soap and the rest vinegar. I then sprayed the weeds with this mixture. AFter that, I poured straight salt on the weeds. That night the weeds were dying. This is a great safe way to kill weeds. I used round up 2 years ago and my cat got sick. My dogs chew on weeds so I don't think roundup is safe even after 24 hours. Plus roundup is more expensive than vinegar,salt and dish soap. Just make sure you only do not spray or salt anywhere you don't want to kill plants or grass. They say the salt lasts longer than roundup and results are as quick or quicker than roundup.

gasoline~just make sure you never want to plant there (anything) again

drink 4 oz gin then put your gloves on and start pulling

how can I kill "creeping Jenny" ? It is taking over my yard ! Help!!