Are you looking for a natural pesticide for your plants? Here’s the baking soda trick and other very effective recipes you can try right away6. July 2023 16:19
Anyone who has a garden or balcony full of flowers knows how difficult it is to eradicate pests: these tiny insects infest plants and consume their elixir of life, often seriously damaging them, if not for their death. There are many types of parasites, some of which are very common (it’s virtually impossible not to have to deal with them) and others that are significantly rarer. In any case, some means must be used to protect plants from their devastating effects. How do you do that? There are many chemical pesticides on the market, but it is possible to try natural solutions first. Let’s discover the best ones.
Goodbye to parasites: how to eradicate them
From ants to rose aphids, your garden is constantly in danger. And if you only have a small balcony with a few plants here and there, you’re still not sure: pests really do get everywhere and cause serious damage to flowers and crops. It is important to act quickly when the first signs are noticed and thus try to prevent an actual infestation. On the other hand, if it’s too late, don’t waste any more time – you need to find the best pesticide for your needs. But are chemical insecticides the right choice? These are products that are effective against parasites, but they are also very harmful to the environment and often harmful to health. The idea of using them for fruits and vegetables, but also for your aromatic herbs that then end up in the kitchen, is not really the best thing. Instead, try natural remedies, which are more environmentally friendly and often much cheaper because they’re made with ingredients that are available in any supermarket. Here are some very effective ones.
Natural Pesticide with Baking Soda
There are ingredients that we all have at home that are incredibly repellent to insects and parasites. One of them is baking soda: it is a perfect ally for household cleaning and impeccable laundry, and it is also suitable for the preparation of an inexpensive and super effective homemade pesticide. Not to mention, it’s safe for plants and, more importantly, safe for humans. Let’s look at the best ways to use it to protect your plants. Start by sprinkling some baking soda around your plants, both in the garden soil and at the bottom of the balcony where you’ve placed the pots. This way, you can keep earthworms, snails and ants away: for them, this usually harmless white powder is a real danger. For greater effectiveness against parasite infestation, dissolve 3 tablespoons of baking soda in 4 liters of hot water and pour everything into a spray bottle by spraying the mixture on the leaves and surrounding soil. If you want an even stronger remedy, suitable not only for pest control, but also against fungal infections of plants, fill a spray bottle with 1 liter of water and add 4 tablespoons of baking soda and 60 ml of olive oil. Once everything is well mixed, spray the solution on the leaves and around the plant, avoiding fruits and flowers. Even better if you do it first thing in the morning or in the evening after sunset to prevent the water from evaporating immediately in the sun.
All Natural Remedies for Parasites
Of course, the baking soda trick isn’t the only one you can use to get rid of pests. For mealybugs or aphids, Marseille soap, for example, is a very effective remedy. This product, even before being the best solution for household cleaning and laundry, is widely used in agriculture to protect plants from certain pests, especially when growing aromatic herbs, vegetables, and small fruit plants. To prepare the pesticide, cut a bar of Marseille soap into flakes and dissolve it in a saucepan of water and heat it over low heat until you get a homogeneous mixture. Let everything cool down and put it in a spray container applying it to the leaves and flowers that you want to protect from pests. If you want to make it even stronger, add a few drops of neem oil, which contains an active ingredient that is ideal for keeping insects such as bugs and mites away. Another natural solution is propolis: this substance produced by bees contains flavonoids in large quantities, which stimulate the plant’s metabolism and strengthen its defenses. The preparation of this pesticide is a little more complicated, but it is really worth it, because it is very effective and safe, both for humans and for the vegetation itself. Start by preparing an aqueous solution: pour 150 g of propolis into 1 liter of water and add 1 g of soy lecithin. Let everything macerate for at least two weeks. Finally, pour in the mixture and filter carefully. You’ll need the residue for the alcohol solution. The latter is made by pouring the residue into 1 litre of ethyl alcohol at 95° and adding 1 g of soy lecithin. Let it macerate for a few weeks and stir well at least once a day. Finally, filter the mixture obtained. The final step is to mix 100 g of aqueous solution with 100 g of alcohol solution. Take 10 grams of the mixture thus formed and dilute it in 5 liters of water: here is your pesticide that you can spray on plants in the garden or on the balcony to combat pests and fungi. Then there are other macerates that are easier to prepare but just as effective. The first is nettle macerate, which has a really unpleasant smell for insects (and is actually quite unpleasant for humans as well). Collect 1 kg of nettles without roots and put them in 10 liters of water to macerate them for at least a couple of days. Filter the solution obtained and pour it into a spray bottle: the insecticide is ready, you just have to spray it on the plants without having to dilute it further. The additional idea? Let the nettles sit for a few weeks, then you will have a great fertilizer as well. Finally, let’s see how to prepare garlic macerate: this tuber, which gives off a certainly unpleasant smell, contains significant amounts of allicin, an antibiotic substance with powerful antiparasitic properties. Crush 75 grams of garlic and put everything in a bowl with 10 liters of hot water. You should macerate the mixture for at least 5 hours before filtering it and pouring it into a spray bottle. Drizzle the garlic macerate over the plants without diluting it, preferably early in the morning or evening.
