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Many believe passionately in living our lives as naturally as possible and using natural, non-toxic pest control. While there is a wide range of organic pesticides and fungicides out there, sometimes we just want something that’s basic, simple, and that you can whip up when needed.
Here, we’ll share some of the best DIY natural solutions with you that can be effective. These simple and easy homemade recipes may also save you money!
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Here are 6 DIY recipes are that are:
- Easy to make
- Cheap
- Easy to use
Organic Baking Soda DIY Pesticide
Baking soda is one of those multipurpose garden remedies that is simple, inexpensive, and safe to use.
Ingredients:
- 1 teaspoon of baking soda
- 1/3 cup of olive oil or cooking oil
- 1 cup of water
Directions:
Mix all ingredients and put in a spray bottle. Shake thoroughly.
This spray works great to kill aphids, spider mites, and whiteflies, but it doesn’t harm beneficial insects. It can be used on almost any type of vegetable or flower.
More baking soda pest control ideas to try:
- Sprinkle baking soda lightly and just occasionally around flower beds to discourage rabbits from nibbling on buds.
- To eliminate outdoor ants in their dirt mounds, try sprinkling baking soda on the mound when it is damp. After about a half-hour, pour a small amount of vinegar on the ant hill. Ants will ingest the combination and their body enzymes will do the rest.
- Get rid of those pesky backyard slugs by sprinkling baking soda directly onto plants. This will kill them by drying them up quickly.
Slug And Snail Trap
Do you have a lot of slugs or snails invading your garden? If so, there’s a method of trapping them that most people don’t experiment with that uses simple ingredients.
Ingredients:
- A shallow pan or bowl, such as a pie pan, that you don’t mind partially burying in your garden
- Leftover flat beer, enough to make a good-sized puddle
Directions:
Take your bowl or pie pan out and bury it up to its edge in the garden near the edges of beds where the snails enter. You don’t want it in the middle of a bed as it acts as a lure, and you don’t want these annoying crawling pests to be tempted to stop by your plants along the way!
Pour flat beer in, and then leave it there for 1-2 days. Check on it occasionally. You should start finding snails or slugs drowned in the beer. Pick them out and throw them away. Top off the beer occasionally.
You can use fresh cheap beer for this technique, too, but hitting up your local brewery and asking if they have some flat, undrinkable beer you can have for trapping pests in your garden might not hurt.
Other DIY, natural ways to rid your garden of slugs:
- Hand pick: This is a tried and true method, but it works best at night.
- Iron phosphate: Makes snails and slugs stop eating and die after ingesting. Is organic and safe around pets and wildlife.
- Copper strips: When placed and wrapped around garden beds and pots it will keep them away. It does not kill them, but when their bodies touch the copper it gives them an electric shock.
Neem Oil
Many people keep neem oil on hand to blend into pet shampoos for reducing fleas. But what if I told you it’s one of the most effective options for garden pest treatment?
Ingredients
- 1 gallon of water
- 4 teaspoons of organic cold-pressed virgin neem oil (or the amount recommended by the maker)
Directions
Mix the water and neem oil in a pump sprayer and shake well to mix it. Use a hand sprayer to apply over plants, occasionally stopping to re-shake the sprayer so that the oil stays mixed into the water. Be sure to cover the plant’s entire foliage, including the stem and underside of leaves where insects often hide.
Once dry, the neem oil will form a short-term layer of protection against garden pests and some fungi. You may need to reapply it on a weekly or biweekly basis, depending on how bad your pest pressures are.
Quick Benefits of Neem Oil:
Neem oil is unique in that it kills insects at all stages — adult, larvae, and egg. The active chemical in neem oil is azadirachtin which works a few different ways: as a feeding deterrent, a disruptor, and by smothering the eggs.
Neem oil is a natural, plant-based, non-toxic, organic product that is a pesticide and fungicide all in one. It can help control over 200 species of insects including mealybugs, aphids, thrips, whiteflies, mites, and more.
Neem Oil for Japanese Beetles
Neem oil is effective on Japanese beetles that have enormous appetites and eat quite a variety of flowers and plants like roses. Spray as directed above and make sure to spray all around the soil of the plant to destroy the larvae as well. You may also hand-pick the Japanese beetles off your roses and other plants by placing them into a small jar with soapy water where they will drown.
Diatomaceous Earth
Ingredients
- diatomaceous earth
- a powder duster or an old shaker container
Directions
Sprinkle DE powder with a duster in the garden or where bugs are. It’s just as effective around the exterior of your home as it is in the garden.
Use food-grade diatomaceous earthin your garden for insect control. It is a natural safe product straight from Mother Nature. Basically, it’s a powder made of fossilized diatom shells, millions of years old, that kills any insect with its sharp edges. DE cuts the insect’s exoskeleton and they dehydrate and die. It is deadly to any insect; it kills hard-bodied insects and soft-bodied larvae and it even kills termites.
However, it only works when it’s dry; once it gets wet, the diatoms soften enough that it has little effect. If you water your plants at the base and lightly dust the leaves with DE, it provides protection only until the next time that it rains!
Homemade Garlic Spray
What if you have both insect pests and random neighborhood pets that stop by and wreak havoc in your garden?
Garlic has long been known as a deterrent. In fact, it’s sometimes referred to as the “stinking rose”. You can make your own garlic spray by following my directions at this page.
Some notes about garlic sprays:
This spray works by literally smelling, yes, exactly like garlic. And it can keep cats out of your garden for very short periods of time, as well as wildlife. But it also deters most insect pests.
The downside to a garlic spray is that it may also deter some of the most common beneficial insects, too. This treatment is best used on plants that are all foliage with no flowers, like your snake plants or maybe some Boston ferns. If it’s used on flowering plants, the pollinators may stay away, and then you’ll have to pollinate them yourself by hand.
Kaolin Clay
There’s a type of clay that has been used as an absorbent additive for cosmetics and face masks for centuries. Called kaolin clay, this very finely powdered mineral is extremely good at soaking up oils from your skin, and may already be tucked away in your bathroom.
But you can use this same material against pests, too. Much as you’d use diatomaceous earth, you can dust plant foliage with kaolin clay. The clay will suck the moisture out of soft-bodied insects like aphids, basically causing them to dehydrate and die.
As with diatomaceous earth, kaolin clay is best used on dry foliage. Use a duster or a shaker bottle to apply a thin layer to leaf surfaces. After a good rain, wait for the plant to dry fully out before reapplying. But once it’s in place, you’ll find that it’s very effective against quite a few pests!
