With pets and well water at our home, it was important to us that we use all natural weed killer. We searched around and found that a simple mixture of vinegar, salt and dish soap was all you needed. 

Vinegar: The acetic acid in vinegar does a great job of killing weeds. Search for a vinegar with 20-30% acetic acid (we used 30%). Most household vinegars are only 5% acetic acid and not very effective in this mix.

Salt: The salt acts as a dehydrator and combined with the vinegar is very effective. Some recipes out there are salt water or vinegar only. We found the combination to be quicker and more effective at killing the weeds in our gravel and paths. 

Dish Soap: Adding a small amount of natural dish soap to the mix helps the solution adhere to the weeds.

We used the following ratio for our solution:

• 1 gallon vinegar
• 1 cup salt
• 1 tbsp dish soap

It’s best to spray the weeds on a sunny day to let the heat accelerate the dehydration process. Give it a few hours and you’ll see the weeds start to wilt. Remember that this does dehydrate plants so spray carefully to avoid covering any of your other plants.