Aspirin – Dissolve 3/4 of an uncoated asprin tablet in 1 gallon of water. Spray plants ever 2-3 weeks with the mixture to prevent fungus problems, including powdery mildew and black spot. It’s also been found to help some plants yield more fruit than using commercial fertilizers.
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| Baking Soda |
Baking Soda – Mix 1 tbs of baking soda and a 1/2 tsp liquid soap into 1 gallon of water. Spray this weekly on plants that are prone to powdery mildew. This works as more of a preventative as it won’t do much after the powdery mildew has taken hold. Make sure to spray the undersides of leaves. Also, apply it in the evening if you can, as it can burn some leaves.
Borax – This is a common laundry additive (20 Mule Team is a popular brand), esp. for those of us with hard water. But it also works as a nontoxic ant killer. Ants are a huge problem for us as they “farm” aphids and mealy bugs for their honeydew. We have tons of ladybugs but they are useless if the ants are protecting the pests.
Dryer Sheets – If you’re having a picnic or BBQ and are being plagued by yellow jackets, aka meat bees, and mosquitos, place dryer sheets around the area to deter them.
Eggshells – Save all of your eggshells! Rinse them and then crush them when they are dry. When preparing a planting bed for tomatoes or peppers add the eggshells (approx. shells from 1 dozen eggs per plant) to the planting hole to avoid blossom end rot.
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| Milk |
Rubbing Alcohol – Apply 70% isopropyl alcohol to a cotton ball and apply to scale insects. The alcohol dessicates them. Rub them off when they’re dead so you can continue to monitor their levels.
Shampoo – Mix 2.5 Tbs Shampoo and 2.5 Tbs cooking oil with 1 gallon of water. Spray insect pests with mixture to control them. Do not use in full sun and a few hours after application rinse off plant to reduce injury.
If you have other household garden remedies, please share them!
I wish I knew the rubbing alcohol trick a few years ago. At our last house we had a young Eureka lemon tree that suffered tremendously with scale. Nasty creatures, and not easy to get rid of (also frequently protected by ants too!).
Garbage can be made as an fertilizers. But the process will took a long time. First, you should bury all the garbages that can be rotten on the ground. to make the process fast you can dig based on the depth you want then layer the garbage. cover it with soil and moisten the soil surface with water to decompose or rot away quickly so that bacteria can grow quickly in the rotting garbage. just repeat the directions until it reach the surface of the ground. The organic fertilizer is ready when the garbages is already decompose.
What a great site,Thank You, very useful and informative,i gave this site a very good rating in WOT,Thanks again
How do you use the Borax? Can you put around your plants. We have a terrible ant problem. I had a small potato plant and a small tomato plant die because small red ants ate a hole through the stem below the soil line. I also have small black ants and carpenter ants. I’ve heard diamataceaous earth works but you have to mix a lot into the soil. I worry that it will kill the earths worms.
Just sprinkle the borax on the soil, preferably near the entrance to the colony. You can do the same with the DE, which won’t hurt earthworms. DE will only kill animals with exoskeletons.
Thank you. I will give this a try. Every year the ant population is growing at our house. I have ants in every room of my house and in the garden. I just finished my third bottle of Terro yesterday. The ants will swarm it and a few weeks later they are back. :/
I never knew you could use milk for blossom end rot. Thanks for the info!
I buy boric acid powder in bulk from dudadiesel.com. Mix it with 6 tablespoons of sugar diluted in 2 cups of very hot water. Use the solution to soak cotton balls and place the cotton balls in the bottom of any suitable container with holes in the side. The ants will gather the poison and take it back to the nest. It works like a charm.