Great simple info for those gardeners out there. P:) healthy-holistic-living/naturally-deal-garden-pests.html?t=mam While the global war against pesticides continues, the prevalence of home gardens is on the rise. People are opting to grow their own fruits and vegetables with the understanding that these days, there is some form of chemical treatment associated with the majority of store bought produce. So, while many Americans are turning away from a dependency on chemicals – let’s be honest, we still want to keep those critters, pests, and nasty diseases out of our gardens. It’s just a lot easier to grow healthy crops without the added interference of outside threats. 1. Soapy Water If you haven’t already heard about all the amazing uses for castile soap, then it’s time to get involved. While other non-toxic soaps also work to get the job done – castile has the added benefit of keeping things as natural as possible. Anyway, adding one teaspoon of castile soap to a spray bottle with water is a great way to repel insects in your garden. The fatty acids that come naturally from the soap break down the outer shells of a large number of insects, eventually killing them before they can cause damage to your plants. 1. Soapy Water If you haven’t already heard about all the amazing uses for castile soap, then it’s time to get involved. While other non-toxic soaps also work to get the job done – castile has the added benefit of keeping things as natural as possible. Anyway, adding one teaspoon of castile soap to a spray bottle with water is a great way to repel insects in your garden. The fatty acids that come naturally from the soap break down the outer shells of a large number of insects, eventually killing them before they can cause damage to your plants. 2. Plain Water You’d be surprised at how effective plain, ordinary water is when it comes to fighting off whiteflies, which typically feed on the undersides of plant leaves. The water will spray the little bugs off of your plants, allowing more useful insects (e.g. ladybugs) to make their way onto the plant to keep the pests under control for you. 3. Garlic Soap Mince or squash about 5-6 cloves of garlic and add them to the same soap and water mixture as Option #1. Keep in mind that castile soap is still the best way to go here. What adding garlic does is it exposes your garden to all the bug repelling qualities that garlic inherently possesses. In specific, the diallyl disulfide & diallyl trisulfideare actually quite irritating to a number of common garden pests. This is especially useful for warding off whiteflies, beetles, and aphids. 4. Baking Soda Spray Mix This may seem like an odd combination, but mixing together ONE teaspoon each of the following ingredients can actually help fight off black spots on flowers: Castile soap Natural vinegar Baking soda Vegetable oil Create the mixture by adding the 1tsp baking soda to ~1cup of warm, filtered water. Then, add the rest of the ingredients into a spray bottle and top it off with the water and soda mix. Spray your plants about once a week with a light coat, or immediately following rainfall. While it isn’t always easy keeping pests out of your garden, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be done naturally. Stick to the organic route and take care of the problem in an inexpensive, non-toxic way – where all of the remedies can be made in your own home. It’s an easy way to save yourself from a whole mess of problems that could otherwise come from more dangerous, chemical options.
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 08:55:39 +0000
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