Rock Salt Used as a Weed Killer

Click HERE to shop for Rock Salt.

A short while back, we had a customer at our Newbury depot making a purchase of Rock Salt which ordinarily is used in cold conditions and in the winter to combat the icy conditions associated with these times.

This admittedly had us confused as the weather was neither cold nor icy, in fact it was the exact opposite.

Normally, Rock salt finds itself being sprinkled on roads, drive and walkways before or after frost and snowfall however this customer seemingly was aware of a weed killing trick that we had missed.

Due to the amount of intrigue, some research had to be done into this and to our delight, we found some instructions on how to use Rock Salt as a weed killer which had to be shared. This is what we found:

1. Sprinkle a few chunks of rock salt on the soil surface at the bases of weeds. They’ll begin dying from desiccation within several days. Use salt sparingly, and don’t count on anything growing there or in the area immediately surrounding it for years to come. Salt leaches into the groundand essentially sterilizes it, preventing vegetative re-growth.


2. Spread a thin layer of rock salt between your walkway’s bricks, pavers or stones. It will kill any weeds or grass growing there, and keep them away for years.


3. Apply rock salt to cracks and crevices in your pavement or driveway. Spread it over gravel walks and drives. It will remain active and prevent re-infestation for quite some time.


4. Add 1 cup of rock salt to 1 gallon of hot water. Stir until the salt is dissolved. Pour the herbicide into a plastic spray bottle. Apply to crabgrass and broadleaf weeds. Reapply five days later. Complete the treatment with a third application five days after that

As we found out, there are quite a few ways of applying Rock Salt to the weed effected areas and from what it seems, it provides a very effective and quite frankly cheaper alternative to the mainstream weed killing methods.

So when the winter time comes around, it might be worth keeping a bit of spare Rock Salt ready to reenact your very own Rambo scene on those weeds.

However if you would like to hasten this, what seems like a forever on-going battle, you can purchase Rock Salt from Rivar Sand and Gravel.