Homemade Recipe Weed Killer From Reader

Q. A friend gave me the following recipe for homemade weed killer.

                 1 Gal.  Vinegar

                 2 C Epsom Salts

                ¼ C Dawn dish soap—blue original

            Spray on weed in the morning after the dew is gone.  Be sure to wash the sprayer well after us because vinegar ruins the rubber gaskets.

            My husband says that the salt could leach into areas that we don’t want to kill.  Also, will the above recipe kill all it comes in contact, grass and broadleaf weeds? I would appreciate your thoughts on this. 

A. I am not sure it will work but give it a try. The Epsom salts is a safe salt to use, not like table salt which is more like what your husband is thinking about. Table salt is sodium chloride. Both the sodium and the chloride are toxic to plants and the sodium in particular can cause longer term problems with the soil. 

Epsom salts is calcium and magnesium carbonate salts. Safe for plants and used on roses by lots of Rosarians. My experience with vinegar as weed killer is that the acetic acid has to be above 15% which is hard to find.