Several years ago I discovered 30% vinegar solution as a weed killer. I am not the most eco-oriented person in the world and I can’t pretend that I make choices that are only the right eco-friendly option at all times. Generally, I think that adoption of these things needs to be cost neutral or better and relatively convenient as well. When you go to Lowe’s or Home Depot at this time of year, you see stacks and stacks of cartons of Round-Up and other name brand weed killers. This is the height of weed season around here to be sure. The first thing I noticed when we got home was that the weeds were sprouting along the driveway and in all the cracks and crevices. I have a functioning two-gallon sprayer that’s relatively easy to carry around and use to squirt any and all weeds that dare pop their head up around the garden. Mike and most other guys will fill up their sprayers with Round-Up and go blanket their garden with the stuff and never look back. There is little or no fear of a “silent spring” in the gardens of most suburban homeowners.
I think it may have been my sister, who has a noticeably organic bent, who put me on to vinegar as a weed killer. Yes, vinegar can be an effective natural weed killer, particularly when used properly. What makes it work is that vinegar contains acetic acid, which draws moisture out of plant cells and causes them to die. Household white vinegar (5% acetic acid) can kill young, annual weeds, while horticultural vinegar (15-20% acetic acid) is more effective for tougher or perennial weeds. No holding back for me…Lowe’s sells 30% vinegar solution. Let’s just say I prefer to use industrial strength on my hilltop weeds. It is best to apply it on a hot, sunny day when no rain is expected, but most days out here work unless its pouring rain. You spray the stuff right out of the jug and directly on leaves, avoiding desirable plants. It pretty much does the trick on a same day basis. They say that the main advantages are that vinegar is inexpensive, readily available, and biodegradable. However, it’s non-selective (will kill any plant it contacts) and doesn’t kill weed roots, so regrowth can occur, especially with perennial weeds. Also, for the stuff I use, I pay about $20/gallon, which is 2-3X the cost of Round-Up. Nonetheless, I insist on using it and I buy 4-8 gallons at a throw and am none too sparing as I apply it.
I get a weird satisfaction spraying high-potency vinegar all around my garden and prefer it immeasurably to pulling weeds and releasing all those weed spores in the process. There is something about the astringent smell of vinegar that appeals to me so long as the whiff is not too intense. It feels clean to the point of being antiseptic and that makes the weed spraying all the more effective by my reckoning. I know its strong stuff that I don’t want to get on my skin or in my eyes. I spilled some on the driveway today and when I came back an hour later I was surprised to see how caustic it was. It left a white ashen residue that looked ominous and like the driveway had gotten chemically scorched, which is exactly what had happened in a manner of speaking.
I’m holding off on any further vinegar spraying today because Joventino is here and I’m sure he doesn’t appreciate getting poisoned by me. After five weeks since Joventino’s last visit and given all the springtime rains, I have decided to leave the garden’s needs in Joventino’s hands and not direct his efforts towards any specific projects today. Unfortunately, one of my most beautiful candelabra euphorbias got uprooted by the heavy rains and excess moisture. This was a massive, twelve-foot-high, tightly packed euphorbia with dozens of upward swelling arms reaching for the sky. I hated to see it go, but had to have Joventino haul it off to our favorite cliff dump site on the northern edge of the property. It’s absence leaves a bit of a hole in the front garden which I must ponder over time before I try to refill. My grand dame of a succulent garden is getting long of tooth and I simply have to accept that neither trees nor succulents grow to the sky and they all age out sooner or later. So far, in the past few years, we have lost two giant Saguaro cacti, two giant yellowish Euphorbia cacti, the latest medium green Euphorbia and any number of Aeonuems, Hen & Chicks (Crassulaceae) and Jade Plants. I attribute almost all of this to simply aging out. It’s a fact of garden life I’m afraid.
I currently have two new ideas of things I want to accomplish in the garden. The first is an easy one. For the three years the granddaughters have been coming out here in the summer, I have consistently tried to upgrade the fairy village I built into the boulder to the east side of the garage. I’m not sure exactly how many gnomes I have on that rock, but it must be several hundred at least, not to mention all the little miniature knickknacks ranging from little animals to cute little furnishings. Funny thing, but the kids have always been pretty nonchalant about the fairy village and I suspect that the adults have thought it a bit weird that I have put so much time and effort into it. While I wanted this to be a grandfatherly project with everyone chipping in and having some special nook or cranny that was their personal favorite spot, that never came to pass. No one ever paid more than a fleeting glance at it and I have always felt that it was under-appreciated. I was always also a bit sheepish about having done it and never declared it as my project, but rather something done for the granddaughters. In other words, I was “forced” to tell some white lies to save face. Fairy villages are like anything else in the garden, they get old and tired. Pieces fade and get dislodged, inevitably ending up on the ground at the base of the boulder. Whatever whimsey there was in the fairy village is long gone and what is left is the equivalent of an old midwestern mill town with nothing to appeal to anyone any more. Therefore, I’ve decided to raze the village and strip the boulder bare of all its adornments. I will put all the bits and pieces in a bucket and let Kim decide if there is a secondary market for such bits and pieces.
The other idea is also driven by general decay and ill-conceived planning. I have decided that the play area, as bright and fun as it looks from the street, is showing its age. It too has never gotten the traction with the kids that I had hoped. If I had an idea for some special garden, I might take the whole structure down to the dirt, but I genuinely have no clue what I would put in there. So, instead, I have decided to strip the playing surface, keeping the adornments like the metal sculpture and large stone-filled pots, toss all the mini-golf, bocci ball and disc golf elements, and start by leveling the playing surface. In business we always talk about a level playing field, but I made the mistake of thinking that an unleveled surface would be a fun challenge for a games area. Not so much. Handy Brad will help me get the surface leveled up…it happens to be a specialty of his, and then I will recast the 60’x15’ surface as a tournament quality croquet pitch. I will repurpose the sculptures and pots as pleasant obstacles to add visual interest without detracting from the main event of a croquet course. I’m actually quite pleased with this new idea and. Just hope that the level playing field brings people to play this time. I will lay down a healthy layer of vinegar as well around the edges of the new course in an abundance of caution against weeds and any other living creepy crawlers that may want to interrupt my creative efforts. Everything in the garden benefits from a dose of spring vinegar.
P.S. I finally solved the mystery of the leak in the garage that left me with a puddle where my truck gets parked. It turns out that my vinegar sprayer had sprung a leak, made evident by the puddle of vinegar in the garage this evening. Spring vinegar has yet again the last laugh.