Here's my take on the DIY aphid and ant spray. It works like a champ!
Can I just say, this stuff, even with my half-way attempt at following the recipe, is AMAZING!
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| boring everyday things CAN kill on contact! |
To save my one lone bell pepper plant, I was researching how to get rid of aphids (and subsequent ants) using alternatives to harsh chemicals. I found quite a few sites that talk about using a tomato leaf spray or a garlic oil spray. I'm sure they'll work fine. I'm just too impatient to wait the 24 hrs for the smashed cloves of garlic or the tomato leaves to steep. Plus it seemed too fussy for me.
Then I happened upon this site, and its ever-so-easy homemade insecticide spray, which is basically soap and oil in water. SOLD!
I just guessed on following their recipe. Here's what I did:
Start with a big empty spray bottle
cooking Oil: glug in enough to approximate 2 tablespoons
Soap: dribble in enough to look like 1 teaspoon, then squirt in some more just to make sure.
shake all this up to blend them together.
fill the bottle up with water.
***go have fun spraying and killing all those icky things! (shake the spray bottle occasionally since the water and oil tends to separate)
The downside is this'll kill friendly things, like ladybugs. Since my patio container garden is ladybug free, I'm okay with using this.
There was a hint of an ant trail from the patio edge to the bell pepper plant yesterday, and then today,when I checked, it was almost a thick, black ant highway!! Yuck! They gotta go. Guess what? After dowsing the ant trail with the soap/oil spray, they all went away! And they are still gone, 5 hours later. I know that's not long, but with ants, they would've been back by now. I'll check back later on the aphid's demise. Here's hoping it wasn't too late for the bell pepper plant!
Hugs!
(I'm off to go wash my hands)
Caroline
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