organic pest repellents

Life as it should be in the garden is a micro ecosystem that creates its own environment without the use of modern chemicals. It is a challenge but it can work with the use of a few old home recipes, and the repayment is fantastic. You can have a garden full of healthy plants and vegetables, wild life and birds – chemical free.

Organic gardening is safe and proven, with care; the frogs will look after the slugs and the snails and clean up at night. The ladybirds will control the aphids, the blue tongue lizards and the water dragons will eat the snails and spiders, the currawongs and magpies will eat the lawn grubs, and the secret is to stop using chemical sprays. It may take a full season but in time you will be rewarded and the wildlife will return. Always make sure to keep sprays and powders away from pets and children.

Even home made sprays should only be used as a last resort. Very few are selective, thus most will kill the good insects as well as the bad.

Soapy water

will fix most insects and scales but if this fails try garlic spray.

Garlic Spray

3-4 cloves of Garlic
1/2 - 1 tsp. Cayenne
500ml Water
dishwashing liquid

Mix garlic, cayenne and water together in the blender and strain through a fine cloth. Add a few drops of dishwashing liquid to help the spray remain on the foliage. Use sparingly to control aphids, and other sucking insects

Yellow Sticky Traps

Hang a strip of yellow plastic covered with Vaseline in the vegetable garden to control white fly.

Powdery mildew

can be controlled quite effectively with a spray of one part milk to 10 parts of water. Spray in the cooler hours of the early morning. Repeat the spray weekly until the mildew has gone

Keep the possums away

from your plants by hanging a handful of naphthalene flakes in an old stocking in the foliage.

Black spot

on roses can be cured with a solution of 1 tblsp of baking soda, 1 tsp of dishwashing liquid and 5 litres of water, sprayed weekly in the early mornings.

Borax and icing sugar for ants

¼ cup icing sugar mixed with 1 tbsp of borax sprinkled where ants congregate will eliminate the nest. The workers will take the powder back to the nest and the nest will be eliminated. As with all sprays and remedies keep the borax well away from pets and children

Chewing earwigs

love to be dark and dry. Fill a terracotta pot with dry grass and balance it upside down on a bamboo care. Earwigs will congregate in the pot. Empty every few days.

Snails love beer

. An old plastic drink bottle filled with beer lying on its side will soon attract them into the bottle. A drunken snail is a dead snail.

Old coffee grounds and tea leaves

are great fertilisers. Never throw them away, put them on the garden under your trees and shrubs.

Worm Farms

are a great way to compost down all your vegetable waste from the kitchen. The liquid produced from a worm farm is the richest fertiliser that I know.

 

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Pest Repellent Plants