Ruin the meal
If a very determined slug has reached your hosta or young sunflower, make sure you sorely disappoint them by serving up a garlic-tastic dish.
Garlic Spray
- Crush the cloves from two garlic bulbs into a saucepan of boiling water,
- add chilli powder,
- and leave to simmer (with the lid on and the windows open) for half an hour.
Decant into a spray bottle, and spray all over your plants. This spray also works as an insect repellant for other plants such as roses. Research has shown that slugs hate the scent and taste of garlic oil and will leave their prey well alone.
Chop up 1.4kg/3lb rhubarb leaves.
Boil for 1/2 hour in 3.5litres/6 pints water.
Strain off liquid and cool.
Dissolve 28g/1oz soapflakes in 1.2litres/2 pints water, mix with the rhubarb liquid and spray.
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I put a number of rhubarb leaves in a tub of water and let them rot down I did not boil the leaves.
On return from holiday I found my ruuner beans were covered in blackfly.
I mixed a little soapy water into the rhubarb leaf tea and sprayed the beans with the mixture.
The results were quite impressive and I would use this method again in future.
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Garlic Spray
1 garlic bulb
1 medium onion
1 tablespoon of cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon liquid soap
Crush the garlic, mincing it fine. Add finely chopped onion to the mixture, while adding the rest of the ingredients except the soap. Wait an hour before adding the soap to the mixture. The spicy ingredients must sort of stew or steep, almost like tea. After an hour, add the soap and your non-toxic spray is ready to use! This can be stored in the fridge for a week.
Now are you ready for a really creative way to kick the slugs to the curb? Well, here it is. Do you have a 2-liter bottle? I'm sure that you do. We are going to construct a kind of slug motel. The slugs check in, but they don't check out. Things you need:
2 liter bottle
A few staples or a paper clip
Cut the top 1/3 off of the 2-liter bottle, right where the neck comes down where the paper label is. Around 4 inches below the neck place the top or neck portion of the 2-liter and place it into the bottom of the 2-liter bottle. Paper clip or staple these together. It will look like a closed funnel when the slug motel is constructed. Take a tablespoon full of slug bait (this can be found in any hardware or gardener supply store) or pour 1/4 cup of beer into the inside portion of the slug motel or funnel area. The beer seems to work better than the slug bait.
Slug bait seems to draw many different kinds of bugs. The beer only attracts slugs. The slugs find their way into the bottle after being lured by the bait, and they can not get out. After a few weeks you can toss the whole thing away, or you can use the carcasses to make the insecticide mentioned in example #1. You can make several of these bottles up for around the garden areas of your home. Use one every 20 feet approximately.
*Be sure to put the bait on the inside of the funnel area of the bottle, for this keeps the beer and harmful pesticides or the slug pellets away from pets and kids.
*This also works for spiders and grasshoppers too!
*This is also how you catch the slugs for the slug carcass spray too!
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Remember that there is almost always a less toxic way to protect your home and garden from pests. You can keep your garden free from pesticides while maintaining your organic garden, as long as you are creative and always open to new ideas.
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Garlic Spray
Target insects: Aphids, cabbage loopers, grasshoppers, June bugs, leafhoppers, mites, squash bugs, slugs and whiteflies. May also help to repel rabbits! Never use oils sprays on Blue Spruce as it will remove the blue waxy coating on the needles! Because garlic contains naturally occurring sulfur it also acts as an antibacterial agent and fungus preventative.
To make: Combine 3 ounces of minced garlic cloves with 1 ounce of mineral oil. Let soak for 24 hours or longer. Strain.
Next mix 1 teaspoon of fish emulsion with 16 ounces of water. Add 1 tablespoon of castile soap to this.
Now slowly combine the fish emulsion water with the garlic oil. Kept in a sealed glass container this mixture will stay viable for several months. To use: Mix 2 tablespoons of garlic oil with 1 pint of water and spray.
When working with oil sprays you want to monitor the climate conditions so your plants won't get phytotoxic burn. Use this simple equation: Take the current outdoor Fahrenheit temperature then add to this the percentage of humidity, if the total is more than 140 don't spray.
Example: Temperature of 80 degrees plus humidity of 67 percent equals 147, don't spray. You also do not want to spray when temps are above 80F.
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