Salt as natural weed killer

Idea

Salt is actually a natural plant killer. If concentration of salt in the soil is high enough, it can kill almost any plant. Have you ever seen a plant growing right on the beach next to the sea?

When a plant absorbs salty water from the soil, there is a different concentration of salt inside and outside of cells. Due to process called osmosis, water inside the cells starts to diffuse through the cell walls to the outside of cells in order to reduce the difference in concentration of salt.

You can do the following to remove unwanted weed:

1. Warm up water.
2. Put salt in it and stir until the salt is dissolved. The maximum ratio is about 10 parts of water and 1 part of salt. If you add more salt, some salt will not dissolve.
3. Pour the salty water next to the roots of the weed. Pour rather less than too much water. If you poured too much water, some other plants close to the place where you poured the water might get affected. If you poured too little water and there is no or little effect you can pour more salty water later. Rule of thumb is that one shot glass is enough for a small weed.
4. After about 24 hours, you notice that the weed started to wither. It usually dries out after one week. You may notice dried out salt on the leaves.

This weed killer method is most suitable for weeds between tiles, next to curbs and footpaths where it is difficult to pull out the roots.