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15 Uses for Vinegar In Your Gardens

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy here.

April 24 by Cassie 16 Comments

15-ways-vinegar-helps-your-garden-grow

Keep Fruit Flies Away

Protect your fruits and fruit trees by making a fruit fly deterrent or rather attractant that they get stuck in. To make: use 1 cup of water, 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar, 1/4 cup of sugar and 1 tbsp of molasses. Mix it all together. Using empty and clean tin cans, make a wire or sturdy string hanger and hang in your fruit trees.  This will attract the flies and they will get stuck.  A similar concoction can be made to trap fruit flies in the house too!

Help Acid Loving Plants

By using vinegar in the water, you can increase the iron in the soil, which acid loving plants like! To do this for hard water areas, add 1 cup of vinegar to 1 gallon of tap water for watering your acid loving plants.

Keep Ants Away

Spray your ant infested areas and ant hills with undiluted vinegar and this will solve your ant problem! You may need to reapply a few times for a few days.

Deter Rabbits, Racoons and Cats

These animals hate the smell of vinegar and it will keep them out of your garden naturally and safely.  It is best to soak something in full strength vinegar for an hour or so and then place around your garden.  Corn cobs, cotton balls, rags, etc.

Rust Eliminator

If you have any rusty garden tools, yard tools or yard pieces, you can remove the rust by either soaking or spraying undiluted vinegar and rinse/wipe clean.

Kill Mold in Containers

It is important to start with clean pots or seedling starter containers so that you can reduce your chances of mold or fungus on your plants. Vinegar and water together can act as a natural mold killer in your containers before replanting.

Reduce Brown Spots in Your Yard 

This one sounds weird and it will only work if you have a dog. Everytime you fill your dog’s water bowl, add a tablespoon of vinegar to the bowl. It is harmless for the dog, but as your dog pees in your yard, it will cure the brown spots….. now if only you can train him/her to pee in the right places! 🙂

Kill Grass and Weeds in Unwanted Areas

Spraying or pouring straight vinegar on your weeds or grass that has overgrown onto driveways or cement will kill them and stop them from growing for a time.  Also, adding salt to the mixture may be a little more effective in this process.  You also may need to do this a few times, but it is safer and a natural alternative.

Keep Your Garden Flowers Longer

If you want to enjoy fruits of your labors indoors with your cut flowers, you can make them last a little longer by making your own feed for your flowers. Just add 2 tablespoons vinegar and 2 tablespoons sugar in a 1-quart vase of water to your flowers.  Trim the stems of the flowers and change this solution about every 5 days or as needed.

Potted Plant Fertilizer

Fertilizer your potted plants and purify the water by adding 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar to 1 gallon of water before you water your potted plants.

Feed Plants

Give your plants extra nutrients with a solution of vinegar, sugar and water. First, mix 1 tablespoon of vinegar and 1 tablespoon of sugar for every 8 ounces of water. Then feed your plants as needed!

Clean Garden Tools

Easily clean your garden tools naturally with a bucket of vinegar and water. Just pour a few ounces of vinegar in a gallon of water and soak and rinse your tools before putting away or storing! You can also mix 3 ounces of vinegar in 32 oz bottle and spray it on to clean!  This will also naturally kill fungus that may develop on your tools from the soil.

Kill Slugs

Just use undiluted vinegar sprayed directly on to kill slugs and snails that eat your lettuce and veggies.

Plant Fungicide

Similar to the damping off issue on your seedlings, you can take a mixture of 2 tablespoons of vinegar and brewed chamomile tea to spray on your plants outdoors to kill fungus and mold that may have grown.

Pecking Chickens

If you have backyard chickens, they can get to a point where they start pecking at each other.  You can help solve this problem naturally! How? Just add a tablespoon of cider vinegar to their drinking water and they will stop pecking at each other! It is a safe and natural solution!

outdoor-uses-for-vinegar

 Also, see our 23 Ways to Use Vinegar Outdoors HERE for even more ideas for more than just the garden!

17-incredible-reasons-to-use-epsom-salts-in-garden-results-will-amaze

Epsom salt is another amazing natural gardening product. Read up on the 17 Incredible Reasons to use Epsom Salts in your garden!

What ideas do you have?  

See more Gardening Tips

See our Gardening Pinterest Board

 

 

 

Filed Under: Daily Dose of Thrifty, Gardening, Homemade Products

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. TERESA HOWLAND

    Does it matter what kind of vinegar, meaning apple cider or plain. You specify apple in 1 part, but what about the other stuff? Is it all apple or do you use distilled????

    Reply
    • Melanie

      I was wondering the same thing…did you get an answer?

      Reply
    • Cassie

      Hi Teresa, Any vinegar will do for these purposes. But distilled white vinegar is the cheapest. Save the apple cider for drinking and kitchen uses for the added health benefits. 🙂

      Reply
    • Gregory Loechel

      I think you will find that it is *distilled vinegar.*

      Reply
  2. Gregory Loechel

    G’day, I’m wondering if the fruit fly you have in the house is what we call vinegar fly, I have a right to be corrected.// If they are small and many that’s a vinegar fly what I understand without looking it up the fruit fly is a loner that attacks fruit on the trees.

    Put it on record that I reckon those vinegar Ideas are fantastic, thank you for them I like the weedkiller, I have no idea if this works yet I have only just read the article at 4 in the morning, now if this kills the weeds then those weedkillers in the shops should be banned from sale. That’s my 10 cents worth, I would charge more but I am right for the time being.!!

    Cheers, Greg.

    Reply
  3. Lucy

    Vinegar is maybe better than chemical weedkillers like glyfosaat, but also very damaging to the eco-system.
    Worms and other life in the soil get killed!!!!!!!!!!
    What about Epsom salt?

    Reply
  4. Vickie

    What!!?? I have always used diluted vinegar to kill weeds and other vegetation. And ut does the job. Years!!!

    Reply

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