DIY Aphid and Ant Spray

Well Hello there! Welcome friends!
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!

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

Patio Garden

I'm so excited! My very first tomato! Check it out!

I just noticed it today. I'm surprised it's as big as it is. We only potted the tomato plant 2 weeks ago. I didn't think we'd see something this soon. I'm just happy everything is still alive!

Me and the niece had a great time playing in the dirt/planting all our plants. I try every year to grow something, but this is first year I have actual sun on the porch, not complete shade.

This was the first day we planted stuff. I got a mix of plants, bulbs and seeds.

These are all the plants on the sunny side of the patio. The shady plants are still marinating in the dirt and haven't popped up yet. When they do, I'll post an update.

This is the close-up of my pot of lettuce. We planted /threw the packet of seeds on the dirt and they sprouted in 3 days. This is Mescluin, a mix of red and green leafy lettuce and arugula. Right now, they're a little to close together. The  packet says to thin them out. I ate a couple of the leave already. They taste like spicy alfalfa sprouts!

This is one of those "as seen on TV" flower seeds in a box that I got from Big Lots. I'm surprised it grew! It's supposed to be 30 different types of flowers that flower/bloom all season long. We ran out of pots so this blue thing is a plastic tub with handles, that normally holds ice and drinks. I think it'll be pretty once the flowers bloom. It's the right size to sit on the table as a centerpiece.

So, here's the full shot. From left to right, it's catnip, sugar snap peas (with the bamboo sticks), tomato in the corner with marigolds, green onions and marigolds, a green pepper plant with strawberry plants, a pink carnation looking plant with purple pansies, Jasmine and pansies, lavender, peony with pansies, lettuce, tomato with strawberries, and last, in the red pot, a blackberry bush!
In the shade we have fern, astible, and hosta.

I'm excited to have my first tomato and lettuce from my patio garden in a couple weeks! Now to keep everything alive!
Hugs!
Caroline