Where did you get that natural remedy?

To me, that sounds like WAY TOO MUCH salt, I doubt you will be able to get that much salt to dissolve in the water at any temperature...

FWIW, ocean water has a salinity of approximately 3%. The proportion you are proposing is 10 times greater...

And then what will that do to the soil in the area? I think its way too much salt and could potentially damage the soil in the area, if you are not very careful with the application.

Honestly, even though this is the organic forum, you would be better with RoundUp than all that salt in terms of how much damage you will do to the soil. NOTHING will grow in that area until the salt is all leeched away and that won't happen overnight.

I'm not sure that you CAN dissolve 3 lbs of salt in 1 gallon of water, even if you wanted to. Where did you get this "natural" remedy from?

I agree, even Round-up would be better than this.

Yeah, this is a bad idea and as Joe said, it's not chemically possible to make a salt solution of those proportions. Dear god do I hate poison oak, I must have had over a 100 cases of it in my lifetime, but your best bet is hand removal of the plants and as much of the roots as you can get, then deep mulching.

It's from "Bottom Line's Healing Remedies." I wonder if it's misprinted or what? I am so afraid of poison ivy; I am so allergic to it. Just thinking of all the oil would get on me by pulling it makes me so scared.

If you are severely allergic to PI, like I am, you cannot pull it, you simply can't risk exposure.

Could you rent some goats? Or hire somebody else to pull it, who isn't severely allergic?

In the past, I had a neighbor who wasn't allergic, who was very diligent about keeping up with the PI. He kept it under control in both of our yards. We would barter, I would mow his yard or give him a case of beer or some baked goods in exchange for his efforts.

But I no longer have that neighbor... ;-(

I'd like some goats, but I don't think my neighbors would appreciate them and I'm sure we don't have the proper zoning for them, either. The other problem with goats is that they will eat stuff besides poison ivy too. There's quite a bit of eupatorium rugosum growing in the same vicinity of the PI, that would not be good for them...

I wish I had a neighbor like that.
Actually, before i posted the question here, I tried salt water (the very little portion of salt dissolved) on PI. This morning I took a look at them. They are as strong and glamorous as they were the day before yesterday. Perhaps, Round-up is the only solution!

When my daughter moved into her new home, she found that the yard was crawling with poison ivy, including up half a dozen huge oak trees.

After recovering from her first bout of misery, she went at those vines with a vengeance! She donned rubber gloves and a disposble raincoat, and proceeded to cut (prune) through as many climbing stems as she could find, as close to the ground as she could. She then covered as much of the crawling vine as she could with old carpet she had removed from the house. That carpet stayed on the ground for a year and a half, but in the end, she had smothered 90% of the growth.
In the spring, donning suitable coverups and armed with the pruner, she cut and pulled dowm as much of the climbing vines as she could reach from a step ladder, bundled them up in rolls of newspaper, bagged the bundles and took them to the dump. She knew that burning the dead plants would expose her to poisonous smoke -- worse than the oils, I promise!

But her yard is now virtually PI free! And the flower garden she was able to plant when the carpet was finally removed is a treasure!

Good luck!

IME, round up alone doesn't work the vines, either.

So...... what can I do, joepyweed??? I cannot let PI multiply, or I would have to move out of here ;-( I love this house.... I am scared even if I wear protection, because I could touch it while taking off the protection. If I touch it, I will have to go to ER........

If you are that reactive to PI, then I think you need to bite the bullet and hire someone to deal with it for you. Organic or non organic solution, either way it sounds like you shouldn't be anywhere near it.

When it comes to killing things I really don't see any advantage to wearing the organic label. In my view organics are for growing things. When it comes to killing things use the least toxic solution that you have reason to believe will actually work and is reasonable for you. By reasonable for you I mean your time, budget and limitations.

Unfortunately, chueh, the most effective way of getting rid of PI in my yard would not meet organic gardening criteria.

You can send me an email if you would like, (culversoot@yahoo.com) so as not to annoy the strict organic gardeners here by talking about non-organic methods.

I too end up in the hospital with PI exposure. I used to get a shot as a prophylactic, but the shot has been banned by the FDA for use as a poison ivy preventative. I guess the side effects were not considered worth the benefits. I do miss that shot.

I don't like Round Up, but I don't like Poison Ivy either.
Round Up is used commercially to get rid of PI. Mix 10:1 and wipe on covering as many leaves as possible. It DOES work, although if you have HUGE vines it might require more than 1 application.
Probably any one you could hire will want to use it anyhow.

PS - I am NOT an advocate of Round Up and would never use it in my garden, but I have used it commercially and it does work.

Round up may work on young and new herbacious plants, but it won't work on the woody vining stuff that grows up the fence line and the oak tree, whose mother root is only knows where...

If RU does work it, might take two or three applications, over the course of several weeks at very high concentrations. Meanwhile, my dogs are brushing up against stuff, I am petting them and then wiping my brow. And then I'm in the hospital, with my eyes swelled shut waiting for them to shove a tube down my throat. Believe me, I've been there, done that...its not fun.

For some reason my dog seems to love PI. He ALWAYS chooses a patch of PI as a rest room. My wife always worries about getting it from the dog, but I never pay any attention and although I am extremely sensitive, and pet the dog without thinking, I have never got it that way. My mother could pull it out barehanded and not be affected.
Round Up works by killing the roots of the plant. Naturally, if you have an extremely large plant it will take more to kill it. However, it DOES NOT take a heavier concentration. In fact, a heavier concentration on many plants may burn the top and NOT kill the roots.
Use it as the label indicates. A lot of problems can be avoided by reading the instructions. :-)
JMO,
Tom

I have gotten poison ivy from dogs on more than one occasion.

And yes, you can get it that way. You can get it from using unwashed tools, you can get it from being exposed to the oil on your clothing when you toss them into the wash...

Using round up per the instructions is very important. And note that regular round up (glyphosate) is not recommended for use woody shrubs and brush. And once poison ivy gets to the vining stage its no longer an herbaceous plant, its a now a woody plant. And yes round up makes a product for poison ivy, but its not just glyphosate, its a combination of triclopyr and glyphosate.

I just bought a house with PI in the yard. While I'm not allergic to it I'm worried about my boy. Although I haven't had a yard for awhile I remember using a hot saline solution and pouring the almost boiling water on PI. It can't handle the heat, and the salt often killed it outright. Digging it out or covering it with old carpet or cardboard took care of the rest. Friendly plants can grow again in a year or so. It's been awhile though since I've done this, so has anyone tried this solution?

It probably wasn't the heat that took down your p.i., Jim. It was the smothering. I've been on plenty of wildland fires that were hotter than boiling water, yet the first opportunistic plant to regrow was usually the poison oak or ivy. Using long-handled clippers and smothering the p.i. would likely give the same results w/o having to salt your soil.