Vinegar Uses: How to Get Rid of Deer & Keeping Flowers Fresh (2024)

Vinegar is great to use in the house but there are also lots of ways to use it outside! Here are 4 great ways to use vinegar in the garden!

#1 Animal deterrent

I wish I had known this trick when we built our first house, out in the country, because I couldn’t keep the pesky deer from eating our plants!

Deer, as well as other animals, “including cats, dogs, rabbits, foxes and racoons, [don’t like] the scent of vinegar even after it has dried. [To keep these pesky] visitors out of your garden [soak] several rags in full-strength white vinegar and place them on stakes around [the] garden, particularly around areas such as vegetables and flower beds. Re-soak the rags every 7-10 days.”

#2 Get rid of bird droppings

Don’t you just love it when a bird flies over your patio furniture and leaves you a nice little souvenir of it’s passing? We live close to a large river which means good soil, which means lots of worms, which equals a lot of birds! I was so glad when I stumbled across this tip! To get rid of “bird droppings [spray] them with full-strength apple cider vinegar.” You can also “pour the vinegar onto a rag and wipe them off” with the soaked rag.

#3 Flower pot stains

To get rid of the stains on your flowerpots mix “as solution of 1 part white vinegar and 2 parts cold water and soak [the] pots until they look clean and new, sometimes [this can take up to] an hour. Wash [them] with soap and water before reusing” them for planing.

#4 Keeping Flowers Fresh

This has to be my favorite new vinegar trick! We all love to have fresh cut flowers in the house, and I’m sure I’m not the only one that gets sad when they wilt after only a few days! To “keep cut flowers fresh longer (or even perk up droopy ones) [add] 2 TBS of white vinegar and 1 TBS of sugar to the vase of water.” You better believe I will be using this trick once all my tulips pop up!

Tomorrow is the last day of this vinegar series. 🙁 I hope you’ll join me to learn how to use vinegar as a solution to so many of our beauty problems!

About Anna

"Hi, I'm Anna! Wife, mother, child of God, and the founder of Ask Anna. I have always enjoyed cleaning, organizing, decorating and helping people, so I've put that all together on the pages of this blog. I truly hope my tips help you in your home and make sure to contact me if you have a question!"

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Comments

guest says
July 27, 2012 at 11:39 pm
I’m a guest to your site and really want to use it…but your video on the side bar that keeps autoplaying is killing me…! Please fix!
Cheers!
- Anna says
  July 28, 2012 at 12:03 am
  Sorry. You can easily pause the video so that it doesn’t keep talking.
jennifer says
April 7, 2013 at 5:33 pm
i wonder– do you think you could mix a solution of vinegar and water to directly spray on plants to keep the deer and the bunnies away?? or would that kill the plants?? :o)
- REGINA says
  September 13, 2013 at 8:54 am
  Straight white vinegar is used as a weed killer, and is known to damage ornamentals as well. Even diluted I would imagine that it would damage your plants at the very least.
Steph says
June 19, 2015 at 1:22 am
I’ve just had my small garden damaged by deer and I am going to try vinegar in yogurt pots and lay these around my plants.
Should I use full or diluted vinegar?
Thanks 🙂
- Anna says
  June 19, 2015 at 9:54 am
  I’d use full strength! Sorry about your garden. 🙁
billy kelley says
January 27, 2019 at 3:59 pm
enjoyed reading about vinegar preventing deer invasion. Gonna try this. Seems the most economical way to go. Thanks.
Dena says
August 9, 2019 at 12:07 pm
In keeping Cut flowers fresh longer, vases vary in size, vinegar and sugar in how much water?
- Anna says
  August 19, 2019 at 12:41 pm
  I usually just fill it about 1/2 way. If you get it too full then the extra leaves are in the water and start to rot/stink.
  - Amy says
    May 16, 2020 at 2:57 pm
    I think Dena was asking, and I’m also curious, if it’s a small vase would you use less vinegar and sugar. So we really need a ratio of water to vinegar to sugar. For example, 1 gallon of water to 2TBS vinegar to 1TBS sugar.
  - Anna says
    May 21, 2020 at 8:45 am
    Yes, a smaller vase would use smaller proportions. 🙂