teka to teeka, Hi, I haven't heard of this but I am hoping that it's true. I'm trying not to use herbicides.
Nancy

Vinegar will do the trick. Also the liquid remaining in a jar of pickles or olives (mostly vinegar) is great also.

If you have old cinnamon powder , that works well . Too expensive to buy some new but if you or anyone you know need to throw some old stuff out - give it a try . Works pretty well on crabgrass - may take more than one application .

According to that guy on HGTV who used to have the gardening show (forget what his name is...), yes, vinegar works great as a weed killer.

Gardener Guy is the show and if you go to HGTV you can download some old shows.I believe he said it had to be agricultural grade,maybe not someone told me that kitchen vinigar is highly diluted and they make a strong ag type but you must cover yes body and wear a mask.I have tried it but I think my weeds just laugh at me ,,,until I bring out the torch.

Yes. I have used nothing but vinegar for weeds for the last year. I buy the horticultural grade of 20% and dilute by half..so one gallon of vinegar makes 2 gallons of herbicide. Your garden will smell like a sub shop for a day or so, but no toxic mess leaches in to your water or poisons the earth, OR my HUGEST thing, not one stinking dime to the most evil monster, Monsanto's pocket...they make Round Up..watch this video on how they poison us, our crops and our earth.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6262083407501596844

.startling and disturbing ..pass it on.

There are several places to buy it and are covered in the GW topic here:

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/organic/msg0621514210084.html

Marhsall Grain is where I buy it.

HTH, Megan

I'll have to go buy the horticultural stuff.

Megan, I watched that Monsanto video and makes me realize how lame our reporters here are. All we see on the front pages is stuff about the Super Bowl and Britney Spears latest haircut...so much more is going on out there.

I can tell you one thing, I am going back to organic milk for my kids, those poor cows given that growth hormone, their milk-producing parts look so out of proportion with their bodies, how terrible. My growing kids are drinking this stuff. Not anymore!

thanks for the vinegar info, too! teeka

I've used the regular vinegar for weeds with very limited results. Where do you get horticultural grade vinegar??

Teeka,

As one of those reporters, I'm sorry you're disappointed in us. Honestly, I'm often disappointed in us too. But please be aware that the industry is undergoing a massive shake-out - different and much more catastrophic for us than the general economic recession. A higher percentage of newspaper reporters have lost their jobs in the past two years than in the auto industry. We're up there with the finance industry in terms of lay-offs, and for as much as some people hate the media, there's no question, at least we didn't cause this recession.

In a few years, there probably won't be daily newspapers in several of our largest cities. The newspapers that are around now have far fewer reporters than they did a decade ago. And many of those reporters are being asked to do many more things than they used to do - post on blogs, shoot, edit and post videos, host chats, etc. Some of us are really trying hard to save the industry, in order to save journalism, so that people get the news they want and need, whether it be about industrial agriculture, political corruption in Washington, the war in Iraq or your local school board meeting.

I'm hopeful that we'll find a way, but the business model is collapsing and no one has come up with a viable alternative yet. So we may not.

Just my little defense of journalism. And gardenwebbers please be aware, your favorite local garden writers are especially vulnerable right now. If you read one you particularly enjoy or rely on, consider an email to let his or her bosses know. A lot of times, the bosses making these difficult decisions don't know what readers want or like. A vocal following can help save a job.

Ok. I'll stop. (And I'm not a garden writer. I'm a legal affairs writer and sometimes war correspondent... so there's very little anyone here can do to save my job when and if it comes up on the chopping block. It would be unethical for me to post something like the above if it would have helped me personally. I post only in hopes of helping people understand what we're going through, and how serious it truly is.)
Susannah

In my experience, weeds just laugh at vinegar.

Tropicalfreak

Well said, Susannah. Even before the recession, newspaper journalists were losing their jobs, and now this.

More to the point, though, is that newspapers put this garbage on the front page because that's what the majority of people are interested in! Sad but true.

Even more to the point, vinegar is great for killing weeds, but only if it's strong enough (10% or higher). I would avoid using too much over valuable roots, too.

Ollie