06.11.2024

10 reasons to use white vinegar to maintain your garden

By Lesia

Maintaining a garden has never been an easy task. To plant, weed and water plants and flowers, it takes time but above all specific gardening products. Whether you are an amateur or a professional in this field, know that it is useless to have in your hands chemical products that are not only expensive but also remain dangerous for health and the environment. The smartest turn to ecological solutions such as white vinegar to protect and improve their exterior.

Those who have a garden know it: there is nothing better than enjoying long sunny days on the grass or moonlit afternoons on the terrace. But you still have to maintain your garden and beautify it. For this, white vinegar can help you in this task and at a lower cost.

10 uses of white vinegar to maintain your garden
Although it is famous for seasoning our salads or for its ability to maintain the house. In addition to cleaning windows, descaling, degreasing, disinfecting, scrubbing, removing stains and deodorizing surfaces, white vinegar is also popular for its effective use in garden maintenance. It is an ecological and versatile product that can replace many classic conventional household products. Like baking soda, it is essential for the maintenance of your garden and terrace. Thanks to its acetic acid, it cleans flower pots covered with limestone residue, weeds the lawn, removes moss or drives away ants and garden pests.

Let’s discover the different ways to use white vinegar to beautify the garden.

  1. Destroy weeds.
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    White vinegar for weeding the garden. Source: mygardenmamaion

Weeding is essential on the one hand to let the plants flourish and ensure their growth, and on the other hand to improve the aesthetics of the garden, especially if you have lawns, terraces, flagstones or paths from which you want to remove weeds. Instead of polluting your garden with dangerous chemicals, it would be wiser to use white vinegar, a natural biodegradable and environmentally friendly herbicide par excellence. To do this, you need to mix 4 liters of water, two tablespoons of dishwashing liquid and a few cups of vinegar. Pour this mixture into a spray bottle and spray it on unwanted weeds on a sunny day to burn them, avoiding the plants you want to preserve. Repeat the operation if necessary with this herbicide. In no time, the weeds will be gone.



  1. Clean garden tools.
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    White vinegar to clean rusty tools. Source: DIY Everywhere

Garden tools tend to rust over time and therefore become ineffective for gardening work. Many gardeners do everything they can to restore their shine, but the ideal solution remains white vinegar. To do this, at the end of each gardening season, simply soak tools such as hoes, rakes and shovels in vinegar and let the eco-friendly product act overnight to make them free of dirt and rust.

  1. Test the pH of the soil
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    Test the pH of the soil. Source: DIY Everywhere

There are three types of soil pH: alkaline, neutral or acidic. Soil is considered acidic when it is below the pH value of 7, it is alkaline when it is above the pH value of 7 and it is neutral when its pH value is 7. Plant cultivation differs depending on the quality of the soil. For example, gardenia needs acidic soil and cannot be grown in alkaline soil.

Also, to test the pH of alkaline soil, you can put some soil in a cup and add two teaspoons of vinegar to it and mix it all together. If there is a bubbling noise and the mixture is agitated, the soil is alkaline. To measure the acidity of the soil, put a quantity of soil in a container and add a tablespoon of baking soda and a little water to cloud the mixture. If bubbling occurs, the soil is acidic. If in both cases there is no reaction, it means that the soil is neutral.

  1. Keep insects away.
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    White vinegar to repel insects. Source: DIY Everywhere

Both inside and outside the home, white vinegar is the ideal solution to eliminate insects from the garden. To remedy this, spray white vinegar mixed with liquid soap in strategic places in your garden and green spaces.

  1. Clean clay pots
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    Restore clay pots with white vinegar. Source: DIY Everywhere

Over time, terracotta pots can become dirty with irrigation water, soil or even fertilizer. If you are bothered by their appearance and want to give them a new look, white vinegar can be a great way to clean them.