Last week, I moaned a bit about the weeds growing up between the paving stones that make up our driveway.
“Why couldn’t the builder have put down weed barrier when they laid the stones,” I asked, naively. My landscaper pal Stephanie pointed out that weed barriers are far from permanent, and I’d probably have weeds anyway. It’s been five years since we moved in. We have stones out back for our patio, too. Those dang weeds just keep rising up.
The DIY weed killer recipe I found actually works fast. It’s composed of a container of cleaning vinegar, a cup of salt, and a tablespoon of dish soap. Mix it until the salt dissolves and you’re good to go. The reason you make so much, I’ve found, is that you’ll be spraying regularly throughout the season. As a bonus, your driveway or walkway will smell like a French fry truck.
I have learned, however, that salt is terrible for the soil and there are even better DIY ways to murder weeds. Boiling water, for example. The water rate in Port Stanley makes that prohibitive on a large scale. I can always dig them out if they drive me too insane and I have days and days to devote to the task.
Sometimes You Need an Expert
Do-it-yourself recipes for other issues have failed spectacularly for me. There was the time in London when we were invaded by carpenter ants. That recipe varies but it’s basically Borax, sugar, and water. And in my experience it does nothing. I watched ants walk up to the dish of this “sure thing” and turn up their little ant noses. The idea is that they take some of it back to their colony and they all eventually go to ant heaven. Didn’t happen. We called in professional exterminators and they got the job done.
Long ago, when my dog Sammy got skunked, people recommended washing her in a mixture of peroxide, baking soda, and dish soap. It didn’t help much at all. Maybe it’s because my little beagle/bassett took a direct hit from Pepe Le Pew and the stench was just too powerful. I bathed her regularly and the more hair she lost, the better she smelled. The only thing that worked on her was time.
Have you ever tried to clear a clogged sink with vinegar and baking soda? Sure, it’s fun to relive the old elementary school science experiment while the solution fizzes up. But it probably won’t move whatever is stopping up the sink. At least, it never did for me. I gave up on DIYing sink issues long ago.
Share Your Secret Mix
I’m sure that many DIY alternatives work just fine. When I travel, I take a little bottle of liquid fabric softener diluted with water. I use it to freshen my clothes. It’s probably the most predicably effective concoction a person could think of. But if you have something you whip up that works on…whatever…and you’re willing to share it, please do so. There’s nothing quite as sweet (and money-saving!) as finding a way to solve a problem on your own. Whether that problem is ants, weeds, or a stinky, smelly dog.