How to Make Natural Insecticides for Vegetable Gardening

When growing vegetables, you need to have control over what you use for their care and maintenance. It is essential to have pest control in your vegetable gardens, so pesky insects don’t start eating what you are growing. No one wants to use chemical pesticides because they will leave harmful and toxic residue on your produce. The best thing that you can do is to use natural ingredients to make inexpensive pesticides. These kinds of pesticides won’t do any harm to either you or the vegetables but will protect them from insects and garden pests.

You can make a homemade oil spray to destroy such insects like  spider mites, and whiteflies. You can make a natural insecticide with a combination of dish soap and cooking oil. Add water to this concentrated liquid using a ration of 4 teaspoons of the oil mixture to 1-pint water. This liquid should be stored it in a glass jar in a dry, dark, and cool place. Then every seven days, liberally spray the vegetables to control garden pests.

Garlic is a strong scent that that will keep pests from eating your vegetables. You have to blend a quart of water with 10 to 12 garlic cloves. The mixture needs to rest for 24 hours. Afterward, use cheesecloth to strain it into a glass jar and add a cup of cooking oil. It can be made stronger by adding cayenne pepper to the concentrate. Then let it rest for 24 hours and strain it. Dilute the liquid with a gallon of water.

Another way to control pests from getting on your vegetable is to make a pesticide spray with baby shampoo. Take two tablespoons of baby shampoo and add 1 gallon of water. Spray this solution thoroughly on your vegetable plants and let it stay on for several hours before you rinse with a garden hose. Don’t use this spray in the sun or on plants that have hairy leaves or a wax-like coating.

You can also make a natural pesticide using red pepper powder. This can be made by missing a tablespoon of the red pepper powder, adding six drops of dish soap, and a gallon of water. Thoroughly mix all the ingredients. Pour this mixture into a sprayer and cover your vegetable with a fine mist. If required, the spray can be reapplied once a week to keep away many different garden pests.

It is advisable to always test some of the organic spray mixture on a leaf before you spray the plant thoroughly. Testing makes sure that the mixture doesn’t burn or damage the leaves in any way. Do the test spraying on your vegetable plants in the morning before the sun gets too hot or in the late afternoon.