Vinegar is good for weed control in the home garden, plus, you can make Pickles and Sauerkraut! :)
Also, there’s this handy tool called a, ‘hoe.’ But it only works when you do! ;)
P.S. I HATE to weed so I mulch everything with straw. When a weed pops up, it’s easy to isolate and pull.
I’ve tried using vinegar on a larger scale. It doesn’t work so well in bigger gardens.
And nobody is going to hoe acres and acres by hand!
This year I’m testing “living mulch”. Basically planting short, tightly-spaced plants around the taller crops, in the hopes that they’ll make it harder for the weeds to get through. With the corn, I’ll be using dwarf marigolds as the mulch crop, to see if they’ll also cut down on insect damage. I’ve heard of cabbage farms using marigolds to deter cabbage moths, so I’m hoping they’ll do something similar to corn earworms.
In some sections, the mulch crop is something useful in itself. There will be beets, basil, radishes, and other small-but-tasty plants in the mix. We’ll see how that works.