Homemade Insecticide Recipes

This is a fabulous link that discusses how to make homemade pesticides ... including one for addressing scales!! Yay!

My poor dwarf lemon has been underseige for quite some time ... hopefully this will help!

http://frugallysustainable.com/2012/03/in-the-garden-how-to-make-your-own-homemade-organic-insecticides-and-pesticides/

For your convenience (and mine!) I have included the recipes from the above link here:


Homemade All-Purpose Insecticide Spray
The Ingredients

• 15 cloves garlic
• 1 onion
• 3 cayenne peppers (or 3 jalapeno peppers or 1 tablespoon cayenne powder)
• 1/2 teaspoon liquid castile soap (fragrance free)
• 4 cups warm water

Method
1. In a blender combine the water, garlic, onion, and peppers and puree.
2. Pour the mixture into a glass jar, secure the lid, and steep for 6-24 hours on the counter.
3. Strain through a cheesecloth, then add the liquid castile soap and mix well.
4. Load the mixture into a spray bottle and you’re good to go.

To Use
Try it on a host of pests in your garden and feel free to adjust it as needed with other insect repellent herbs. Spray the tops and bottoms of the leaves, throughly coating them. Store this mixture in the fridge and if it is strained well, it should keep for at least 1-2 months.  

Note: Be sure to test a patch prior to spraying the entire plant. Take care not to get this on your skin or in your eyes, the cayenne pepper will burn.




Basic Insecticidal Soap
The Ingredients

• 1 1/2 teaspoon any type of liquid soap (i.e. castile, dish washing soap, ivory, etc.)
• 1 quart water

Method
1. Combine all ingredient in a spray bottle.

To Use
Set the spray bottle nozzle to stream and spray infested areas of the foliage. This insecticidal soap works great against some of the most common garden pests such as: aphids, earworms, borers, mites, whiteflies, maggots, moths, and beetles.

Note: By adding 1/4 cup of isopropyl alcohol to the above recipe you can create a very mild but effective insecticidal soap that treats scale insects. The alcohol works against the scale’s shell.




Spider Mite Spray
The Ingredients

• 1/8 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 1/4 gallon of water

Method
1. In a bucket combine all of the ingredients and mix completely.
2. Load into a spray bottle.

To Use
Spray this homemade Spider Mite Spray anywhere spider mites are living or crawling. The mixture should rid your garden of all types of mites.

Launching my new blog ...

Well we moved last year to a quarter acre plot in Sacramento and our landlords are VERY open to allowing us to plant whatever we want to and to us having gardens and chickens and this had unfurled my long suppressed (due to living in homes where we could NOT garden in the ground, I had to content myself with my little potted gardens) desire to really have a more nature-based lifestyle.

 Now that spring is here, I am getting more and more into the concept of homesteading - we have our first chicken and will be getting a couple more soon, and we have started to plot our gardens.

Thought it might be nice to have a blog for me to post every once in a while when I had the urge ... so here I am! :)