Gardening Tips and Recipes to help you have a great garden

Aside from composting and improving the soil, there are many small things you can do to up your gardening game. Learning and using these little gardening hacks will certainly help you along. The great gardening hobby can get expensive, and traditional gardening requires you to put chemicals on your plants – yuck! Why go to all the trouble to grow beautiful vegetables if they aren’t healthy for you too?

These posts will give you great ideas and help you find new ways to do old things. Don’t you just love finding new ways to do things in the garden! So do I.

Natural Garlic Soap Bug Spray Recipe:

Puree 2 garlic cloves in a blender, slowly add 1 qt of water. Strain and add 1/4 teaspoon of liquid soap.
To use: Dilute 10 parts water to 1 part garlic mixture and spray on pests and diseased plants.

Also, here’s another insect repellent recipe for Garlic Oil Spray from How Stuff Works:

Garlic Oil Spray is a great, safe insect repellent. Simply put three to four cloves of minced garlic into two teaspoons of mineral oil. Let the mixture sit overnight, and then strain the garlic out of the oil. Add the oil to one pint of water, and add a teaspoon of biodegradable dish soap. Store in a bottle or jar, and dilute the mixture when you use it by adding two tablespoons of your garlic oil mixture to one pint of water.

This mixture works because the compounds in garlic (namely, diallyl disulfide and diallyl trisulfide) are irritating or deadly to many insects. The oil and soap help the mixture stick to plant leaves. What insects does garlic oil repel? Whiteflies, aphids, and most beetles will avoid plants sprayed with garlic oil. A word of caution: don’t apply this spray on a sunny day, because the oils can cause foliage to burn.

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Be sure and share some of your favorite “sprays and brews” and natural bug repellents in the comments below and visit our Pinterest board – Gardening Hacks for other great ideas.

Other gardening pages at PreparednessMama: Gardening for Food Production – What’s your Garden Style? – Growing Herbs – Get Growing – Composting & Soil Building

Tips, Tricks, Sprays & Brews

Gardening Tips and Recipes to help you have a great garden

Natural Garlic Soap Bug Spray Recipe:

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Season Enders and Extenders

Gardening Tips and Recipes to help you have a great garden

Natural Garlic Soap Bug Spray Recipe:

Posts from PreparednessMama:

Season Enders and Extenders

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