When we first purchased our property, it was the end of winter and our gravel driveway looked a little bare. One of the first things I did was reach out to a person I found on Craigslist who advertised having a dump truck. Once the spring road weight restrictions were lifted, he added 4 inches of gravel to our driveway. At that time, it looked great and I thought we were all set. Little did I realize the challenges of a gravel driveway; especially one that is under a canopy of trees.
The first challenge has been all the organic matter (sticks, leaves, nuts, etc.) that has fallen and continues to fall from the surrounding trees onto our driveway every day. It is very noticeable each time we go to the property. I try to clean things up as much as I can; yet, whenever I return, it looks as though it’s rained organic matter again. Other than weekly / bi-weekly clean-up, I’m not sure there’s a good solution for this challenge (but I’ll keep an ear open and an eye out just in case).
The second challenge has been all of the weeds - mainly dandelion, crabgrass, and pigweed with some plantain thrown in here and there. Because our well is located near the driveway and because I prefer to keep things “organic”, I have avoided chemical weed killers. In this vein, my first attempt at weed removal was to douse them with white vinegar. While this had promising preliminary results, the results proved to be short lived; when we returned the next week, it was as if nothing had happened (i.e., the weeds were back and stronger than ever). I did this a couple of times but began to feel that I was spending way too much money on vinegar for results that just weren’t there.
What to do? Next step - I purchased a weed burning torch. I pretty much killed all of the weeds in our driveway a couple of weekends ago (it probably took 2-3 hours to do this). When we returned a week later, it almost looked as though I hadn’t done a thing. I went through the process again. After a few weekends, it seems like I am making some progress. (I had found and purchased the following from Amazon: "Houseables Weed Torch Propane Burner", Gas Vapor, Black, 20,000 BTU, 34 Inches Long, Outdoor Garden Weeds Killer, Ergonomic Handle, Self Igniting, Trigger Start, Patio Dragon Weeder.)
Somewhere between white vinegar and my weed-burning torch, I was calling on a couple of Amish gentlemen, in search of someone for some metal roofing work I need done. Each of the homes I went to had long and spectacularly weed-free and immaculate gravel driveways. Given the challenges I was going through with our own driveway, I had a heightened sense of awareness regarding gravel driveways. I was able to ask one of the gentlemen how he was able to keep his driveway so weed-free. His response: put a little gasoline in a spray bottle and just spray the weeds!
I’ve tried Googling how to control weeds in a gravel driveway, but the answer always seems to involve a non-organic chemical weed killer. Because neither the gasoline method nor the chemical weed-killing method align with my overall goal for our property or for our well, I am still searching for a final solution should the weed torch prove not to be as effective as I hoped.
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