SEATTLE — Ciscoe Morris has a trick for killing weeds that doesn’t involve expensive poisons with extensive warning labels. In fact, his organic weed destroying agent is probably in your kitchen cupboard right now.
"Straight white vinegar from the grocery store is one of the best weed killers I know - it'll do in those little weeds in the cracks in your sidewalk, as long as you know the trick to doing it right,” said Ciscoe.
“So first thing I did is I went out and bought a really cheap sprayer,” he said. He rigged up a funnel made from a plastic bottle on the nozzle’s end to protect surrounding plants: “One thing I gotta warn you about right now - when you're spraying vinegar, any plant that you hit it will kill. So don't go spraying this in between your favorite plants! You could be doin' them in!”
Don't just mist weeds with this stuff - Ciscoe recommends giving those sidewalk-crack weeds a thorough soaking with vinegar to kill them.
“One thing to keep in mind this only works on a hot sunny day. If it's not in the mid -70s or above you're wasting your vinegar and your time.”
The hotter it is out, the better it works. If you spray vinegar on an 80 degree day, Ciscoe says weeds shrivel up just like the Wicked Witch of the West on The Wizard of Oz.
This method even works on the weed that makes us all crazy: “I use vinegar twice a year to get rid of the dandelions,” said Ciscoe. But you can’t just blast dandelions and leave brown spots in your lawn after vinegar does your dirty work. After the dandelion dies, aerate the brown spot by punching holes in it (you can use a handheld aerator, or improvise with any garden tool that has penetrates the ground) then sprinkle lots of grass seed over the spot, making sure it's the correct type for the spot's sun/shade ratio, and also making sure to get it in the holes. Fertilize with an organic lawn food, and keep it moist: grass needs water to germinate.
“Within three weeks you won’t even remember where you had that dandelion, it'll fill in with beautiful grass, you'll have a beautiful lawn with no dandelions!” said Ciscoe.
“I've got one last warning, but it's an important one. If you've got a hot date after you go around killing lots of dandelions with vinegar, it better be someone that likes pickles. Because you're gonna smell like the world's greatest pickler for the next three days."
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