Best Way To Stop Weeds from Growing in a Brick Walkway

Those darn weeds, they keep coming back year after year. Here are some suggestions to help stop the weeds in their tracks.

The smartest thing to try first (before using harsh chemicals) is spend some time controlling the situation with a hand-held garden weeder. Make sure to pull the weeds up by the roots. Then, spend some time each week pulling up the weeds in the pathway. Remember that mechanical weeding is always the most economical and the safest method for removing and stopping weeds. An amazing tool that removes the weeds from areas hard to get into, such as weeds in between a brick walkway, is “Oswego GW-1 Grandpa’s Weeder”. This tool is available at Amazon here for $25 bucks.

“Oswego GW-1 Grandpa’s Weeder”

Now if you do not want to take that route or you do not have the time and you are considering using harsh chemicals or pesticides… Remember that anything you kill with a pesticide (including using soap and vinegar) that these are just non-synthetic pesticides and will need to be mechanically or hand removed in the very near future. Most weeds will come back and you will just be spraying them time and time again. You will be killing the photosynthetic elements of the weed but not the weed itself.

If you don’t have time for all this you can use a pre-emergent weed control, such as Surflan. (It is a pre-emergent synthetic pesticide chemical and prevents weed seeds from germinating). A pre-emergent only needs to be applied once a year during season and will have very little potential for leaching into other areas if you apply it according to the label. It also will not kill any non-target plants. The best thing to do here is to get everything weeded out, then apply pre-emergent to all of the cracks or areas needing weed control.

So if using a chemical that is bad for the environment bothers you then soapy water works too. A solution of concentrated dish detergent mixed with water in a spray bottle works very well if sprayed directly at the roots.

If you want to make a super-charged homemade weed killer yourself, the soap and vinegar mixture gives you more bang for the buck. Apple cider vinegar works best.

And remember this, it is easier to kill weeds organically if you spray them when they are seedlings than if you wait until they are large and grown. The best thing to do to gain control over those weeds is to get out there once a week and walk the path with your garden weed removing tool and spray bottle filled with your homemade weed killer.

Depending on where your heavily weeded path is in relation to the rest of your plants, salt works also. We have seen it used on gravel driveways and other areas where the ground has good access for weed killers. Salt was used here because the land on either side was beautiful organic growing fields and the salt is not able to accidentally spray everywhere because of the weight of the salt and how it soaks into the ground. Please note that if you apply the salt properly, nothing will ever grow there again.

Ingredients for the BEST diy Homemade Weed Killer:
1/2 cup liquid dish soap concentrated.
1 gallon of Distilled White or Cider Vinegar.
1/4 cup of salt (approximate).

Another method that can be used? Try spilling Boiling water on the weeds when it is colder outside. This can shock and kill the weeds almost as good as any chemical out there.

Do you have other suggestions or tips?
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