Can You Make Weedkillers at Home?

If you struggle with weeds in your home garden or landscaping, you don't have to turn to hazardous commercial herbicides. Learn how to make safer weedkillers at home in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://home.howstuffworks.com/green-living/natural-weed-killers.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.
Hey brain Stuff, Lauren boglebom Here. Whether you're putting your
green thumb to use in your container, garden or home landscaping,
you're no doubt in a battle against weeds. Those pesky
pain in the you know what's for both people and
plants caused many of us to turn to hardware store

(00:23):
shelves for commercial weed killers. While it's true that they
pack a strong punch and do the trick, they can
also cause a lot more harm to the environment than
meets the eye. However, homemade weed killers can do the
same job as the store bought ones and with a
lot less damage. As we all know, bees play a

(00:44):
crucial role in pollination and in the ecosystem, but commercial
weed killers are contributing to the problematic decline bees population.
The culprit glyphosphate, this active ingredient in herbicides, punches bees
right in the gut quite literally. For the article this
episode is based on How Stuff Works, spoke with Andrew C. McCall,

(01:05):
pH d, Associate professor of biology at Dennison University in Grandville, Ohio.
He said the most common herbicide glyphosphate or round up,
has been studied in bees. Mostly it can kill beneficial
gut microbes and bees, which could make the insects more
susceptible to harmful microbes. Glyphosphate can also negatively affect navigation

(01:27):
in honeybee workers. In particular, it looks like they have
a harder time finding their way back to the hive.
But bees aren't the only arthropods who feel the toxic effects,
McCall said. Glyphosphate can also indirectly affect many insects because
it can kill lots of plants that insects eat. The

(01:48):
most prominent example is the common milkweed, an important food
source for monarch caterpillars, and given that these sprays land
on the ground surrounding the weeds, it makes sense the
chemicals could affect the soil too. McCall added. Glyphosphate binds
to soil particles and can negatively affect bacterial communities and fungi.

(02:11):
Even the ingredient used as the transport mechanism for glyphosphate
plays a harmful role. It's known to be even more
toxic to aquatic life, including fish, frog, shrimp, and algae
than glyphosphate itself, and it can easily trickle elsewhere since
it doesn't get stuck in the soil and hangs around
longer before degrading. So how do you kill weeds without

(02:34):
harming the environment. You can, of course take the old
fashioned and uncomfortable approach and pull weeds up manually, but
with just a few common household ingredients you can safely
knock them out with less effort and money. Here are
three easy recipes for homemade weed killers that really work.
The first is a combination of vinegar, epsom, salt, and soap.

(02:58):
This simple concoction of three ingredients we most likely have
in the pantry or under the kitchen sink is guaranteed
to stop weeds in their tracks. A note about that salt.
Anytime you add salt to soil, you will affect the
soil and make it difficult to grow things there in
the future. So if you're targeting weeds where you want
nothing to grow, like a driveway or cracks on a patio,

(03:19):
for instance, go ahead and use the salt. But if
you want to plant in that spot in the future,
leave the salt out of this recipe or use it
very sparingly. That said, here's the basic recipe. For a
quart or one leader of white vinegar, you'll need half
a cup about a hundred millilaters of epsom salt and
a tablespoon or so about fifteen millileaters of liquid dishwhing soap.

(03:42):
Pour the ingredients into a spray bottle and shake until combined.
Then let it settle for two minutes and spray on
the weeds. Make sure to soak the whole weed, but
watch out anything you inadvertently spray will also be killed.
Let it stay on the weeds for twenty four hours.
The weeds should be dead within a day. Uh note
for best effect, spray weeds on a sunny afternoon when

(04:04):
they are dry. And The next homemade solution is even
more simple. It's just boiling water to get rid of
weeds in a driveway or sidewalk cracks. You can just
boil a pot or kettle of water and then pour
it on the weeds, and take caution and pour slowly,
being careful not to splash any on yourself. The water
will kill the weeds right away, but it won't kill

(04:26):
the roots, so you'll likely need to repeat the process
on new growth. For areas that require a bit more caution.
You can selectively trim down weeds and then cover them
with newspaper and mulch. The combination of a layer of
paper and a good couple inches of mulch will block
the sunlight and air from reaching developing weeds and stop
them from germinating and growing. As a bonus, newspaper will

(04:49):
break down over time, leaving nothing to clean up. Looking
for a healthy, long term solution, keep it native. Planting
native flowers in your garden and native grasses in your
yard can help cut down on the amount of weeds
they're inherently better at competing for crucial light, nutrients, and water.
Or you can take it a step further and replace

(05:10):
your lawn or landscaping with native ivy or moss. With
a little outside the box thinking and a few household ingredients,
it really is possible to win the war against weeds
without harming the environment, your garden, your yard, and the
bees will thank you. Today's episode is based on the

(05:31):
article natural weed Killers Made Gardening Safe and Easy on
how stuff works dot Com, written by Katie Carmen. Brain
Stuff is production of I Heart Radio in partnership with
how stuff Works dot com and is produced by Tyler Clay.
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