Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Killing Poison Ivy naturally

One thing that grows very well on our land is Poison Ivy. It grows lush and beautiful on many edges of our lawn, by the garden and it was growing very well by the bottom step of our deck. Thankfully we don't seem to be overly sensitive to it (Mara used to get it a bunch but the last couple of years she has not gotten it much and she is almost always barefoot).

I kept thinking that I needed to figure out how to get rid of it, especially the stuff at the bottom of the stairs, but I hate spraying chemicals around the house and wasn't sure what else to do. I was reading at Keeper of the Home however and came across this post with a very simple and natural recipe. So before our neighborhood BBQ I decided to try it out.

I wish I would have taken a before picture because then you would have seen the super lush and large plants. It had gotten so they were taking over the steps at least 1/2 way across. I poured the recipe (Vinegar, salt and dish soap) over it and sure enough the next day it looked like the above picture. I was pretty happy! At that point I decided to put on gloves and pull out what was left. (I don't think I had coated everything completely as there was still a little green in a couple of places.)


I have decided that natural weed killer certainly works for me!



8 comments:

Laryssa Herbert said...

Very cool! Our home is on 5 acres of woods, so we have LOTS of the nasty stuff. :-)

Keren Ruth said...

Oh good! I was just wondering what it was that you used. :) I tried it except I forgot about the dish soap. I'll have to try again.

Ang said...

Thanks for that! I can not use the chemicals and we have it on almost all the trees in the back yard and now with kids living with us that is one of the places to play. Thanks again for sharing. love Angie

Abbi said...

I hope it works for all of you! Thanks for commenting!

Martha said...

Yeah!! I am always nerves about your patch of poison ivy.

Pamela said...

Hi- just dropping by via Keeper of the Home.Enjoyed your guest posting there on homeschooling. Saw your from Northern MN.. I'm a Northern Minnesotan native(Iron Range area)transplant now in Kansas. Retired home school mom. We started our homeschooling in Minnesota back in the very early days of homeschooling in the state. I never heard of that recipe for poison ivy before. We've got lots here ourselves. A good Minnesota poison ivy story I know from a Bible Camp up north, is that 3 girls broke the camp rules of no smoking allowed and going to areas of the campgrounds that were off limit. They were found one night after lights out when the camp directors wife went out for late evening walk about the camp. She came upon them, the did not see her. She saw where they were sitting and thought "their punishment will arrive in the morning!" Sure enough each one was covered head to toe with poison ivy the next day and ended up in the nurses station and then in conference with the directors wife.

Abbi said...

Pamela, Thanks for stopping by and sharing!

Amber Clawson said...

Hello! What a wonderful site and such a helpful tip with poison ivy. I was led to this site and feel very blessed by it. I too want to be a Proverbs 31 woman.

Keep Christ centered.
God Bless
Amber
(ohio)

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