Weed Killers Cause Cancer: 12 Terrific Alternatives (#5 is Super Easy!)

Photo credit: bigstock.com

6. Crowd Them Out

For lawns or other ornamental gardens, you can make it so that you never (or rarely) have to ever pull or worry about weeds. When you place ground cover plants or certain types of grass, you will deprive weeds of sunlight; water, space, and even soil nutrients that they need to grow and thrive. The best weed suppressing plants, according to the scientists at Cornell University, are:

Emerald blue moss phlox
Majestic lilyturf
Thriller lady’s mantle
Herman’s pride
Walker’s low catmint
Creeping thyme
Golden fleece dwarf goldenrod

7. Baking Soda

This method is a bit slower than some others, but it still works well. Simply dump a good amount of baking soda over the weeds you want to kill and sprinkle with a bit of water. You might need to do this two or three times to kill the weed all the way down to the root. This method works best when weeds are actively growing, such as spring or fall, but it will also work in the summer months. Find out more baking soda uses.

8. Corn Gluten Meal

If you have a really large area to cover, then this natural herbicide might be just what you are looking for. Developed by horticulturists at Iowa State University, this works best as a pre-emergent, which means it works best at killing small roots and seeds before they sprout into full sized plants. It won’t kill off larger weeds, and you need to do it in the early spring, just when weeds are beginning to sprout, however, for those of you with large plots of land, this can work really well. Contact a gardening center for more information.

9. Fry Them

This is probably the favorite method of most guys. If you don’t have one, you can buy a propane powered weed scorcher at almost any garden store. If you have a handheld blow torch, that will also work, but for most people, the garden store weed scorcher works like a charm. Simply touch the flame to the weed. Even if they don’t go up in flames, this will cause them to lose all of their internal moisture. They will shrivel up and die completely within a day or two.

Continue to Page 4