by Ashley
It’s been awhile since I added a trick to my money saving series (see previous money saving posts here: Part 1, 2, 3, & 4).
Today I’ve got a new one to share with you guys….homemade organic weed killer!
It’s monsoon season in Arizona, which means weeds are springing up all over the place! Our weed situation has gotten a bit out of control and I know the HOA doesn’t take kindly to that, so I needed to get ours pulled before we got in trouble from the landlord/homeowner.
I knew we still had a thing of weed-killer from last year but (just my luck) when I tried to use it something with the sprayer was broken and nothing would come out. Even if it had worked, it wasn’t enough to spray on all of our weeds.
Of course, you don’t need weed killer (you can always just rip them up by hand), but it makes pulling them soooooo much easier and faster since the root system is already dead. And we have a LOT of weeds, so we’re talking about saving a LOT of time.
back side-yard
front side-yard
It’s a total hot mess right now!
Enter problem: weed killer is actually pretty expensive. The Round Up brand is in the $20-$25ish range….a big chunk of our budget that we do not have room for!
So I did a little googling and discovered that I could actually make my own weed killer completely from ingredients we already had on hand. As a bonus, it would be totally organic and safe for the kiddos (since they love to traipse around all over the yard).
I used a Home Depot 5 gallon bucket and mixed together water, distilled vinegar, salt, and dish soap. Yep, that’s it! I didn’t measure exact proportions, but I loosely modeled my “recipe” after the one shared on this site.
My plan was to show you beautiful before and after photos so you could see how well the yard looks with no more weeds in it, but……well, life happens and I haven’t actually pulled the weeds yet. Heh. Soon, though! Very soon! I can already tell that the root system is dying (they’re starting to brown and droop over), so at least now when I do pull them they’ll come right up very easily!
Homemade weed killer for the win!
Share your favorite money saving trick (doesn’t have to be about lawn care – anything you’ve done lately to save money???)
Hi, I’m Ashley! Arizonan on paper, Texan at heart. Lover of running, blogging, and all things cheeeeese. Freshly 40, married mother of two, working in academia. Trying to finally (finally!) pay off that ridiculous 6-digit student loan debt!
i tend to use cleaning vinegar, which is about 20% acid. It cleans and kills and works very well for weeds on pavements etc. Roundup is in fact not so expensive if you buy a larger amount and do your own diluting. If find that a quarter gallon of undiluted Roundup will last me at least two years.
Oh awesome, thank you! I probably have some major weed pulling in my future and this will be so helpful!