The Pros And Cons Of Using Vinegar As A Natural Herbicide For Your Lawn
By CHRISTY RAE AMMONS
Vinegar can rid lawns of weeds, but it’ll kill plants it comes into contact with. Vinegar will also turn grass yellow, but it'll only harm the grass' blades, not the roots.
After a week, new blades of grass will grow, but if your grass is only a few weeks old, the vinegar will kill it. Vinegar can also get rid of fungus or insects harming your grass.
Vinegar’s acetic acid causes plants to dehydrate, killing younger weeds with weak roots. Perennial weeds with deep roots need to be treated with vinegar many times before they die.
Vinegar will burn the leaves of grass, but it won’t change the pH of the soil. Adding salt and dish soap to vinegar increases its potency as a herbicide, but there is a caveat.
The salt-vinegar-dish soap solution can only be used sparingly on the leaves of weeds because it can negatively impact the soil and deplete its nutrients.
Some types of vinegar have large concentrations of acetic acid to kill plants, but the USDA says if it contains 11% acetic acid or more, it can burn your skin or damage your eyes.
As long as you don't add salt or soap, you can grow plants in the areas sprayed with vinegar, but anything touched by vinegar, including grass, will get dehydrated and shrivel up.