Natural way to destroy driveway weeds?

[ChasingPeace]

We have weeds poking through our driveway and sidewalk cracks and I'm wondering how to destroy/remove them without using nasty stuff. Cheap is good, too! Thanks!

[tug]

when the ground is good and wet, i grab the whole weed and pull it up. time consuming the first time but it works if you keep on it.

[tara]

Boiling water. Just pour it on the weed and in a day or two it's dead. Plus, I think for a time the soil beneath is sterilized so nothing more will grow...

[sohj]

Why get rid of them? I like the aesthetic of green things pushing through the cracks of human endeavour.

[primjillie]

I use boiling water or regular vinegar. Works every time!

[Ilovelife]

You can use a torch to burn them. They sell "flame weeders" for this purpose.

[moss]

i tend to like the sidewalk weeds too. and have seen articles about specific types of plants that are pretty that can be planted into sidewalk cracks, etc

you could always burn them out if you really cant live with them. propane torches arent the epitome of natural, but it's better than dumping roundup on them

[kaydee]

Vinegar.
Boiling water.
Burn Out II (made from clove oil).
Hand pulling.

[JLav]

Once you get rid of the weed you can sprinkle rock salt in the crack to keep them from coming back.

[Silliest]

go look here for ideas about things you can plant to look pretty and keep the uglier weeds out ;->

http://www.stepables.com/store/scripts/prodSearch.asp

i used to have lobelia (deep purple and pink blossoms) and alyssum (lavender to white blossoms. wonderful honey-scent) in my cement cracks, but they are a bit scraggly for some. We moved, and I haven't planted my "sidewalk flower beds" here yet.

A tidier look would be mother-of-thyme, sometimes called "walk on me" <grin>.

Otherwise, boiling water, vinegar, or salt will work, and if you have a fire-ant problem in your sidewalk cracks like we do, a good dose of borax may kill both birds with one stone. I find it works best if dissolved in water with a bit of dishsoap so it sticks to the leaves, and sprayed on th weeds, then the rest dumped into the cracks for the ants.

However, if you think you might want to kill your weeds and plant in the cracks later, you'd better stick with the boiling water. The borax and salt will definitely make the soil sterile and the vinegar might... I still haven't seen anything sprouting in my vinegar-patch ;-p and it's been about 6 weeks since I used it there.

[Ruthla]

Plain white vinegar, in a spray bottle. After they die, they're easy to pull up.

[cornflake girl]

Plain white vinegar, in a spray bottle. After they die, they're easy to pull up.

How much do you have to spray? I tried this once and it didn't work at all. Guess I just didn't spray enough.

[Ilovelife]

I'm curious about this, too. Before I went with the burning method, I had tried vinegar, boiling water, boiling salt water, boiling water then salt. None of them did anything. Does it depend on what type of weeds they are or what type of soil you have, maybe?

[stafl]

Originally Posted by Ilovelife

You can use a torch to burn them. They sell "flame weeders" for this purpose.

: any old blowtorch will do. Set it on the lowest flame possible, and sizzle all the juices up out of the weeds. You don't have to actually burn them, just dry them out real good. Burning just the leaves won't get rid of certain weeds anyway, you gotta boil all the water up out of the roots and all.