A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2007 Organic Bug Sprays

Anyone have a good recipe for Organic Bug Sprays?

I have a pint of habanero juice I am going to try to make some spray out of.

I wouldn't recommend making any juice yourself it about killed me making it. (I am thinking of placing Nuclear signs on the jar, that stuff is radioactive,)

But I am going to try mixing it with some mineral oil and just a tiny bit of dish soap.

Jimmy has some pretty good home reciepes for all kinds of plant and flowers maybe check with him!

To kill them in the garden or to usr for skeeters?...

Pat don't forget to pulp up a bunch of Garlic to put in that . I have some at home but cannot htink right now. What exactly are you wanting to do? I use a lot of snuff for aphids and stuff like that.
Jimmy

I have Sqush bugs bad, and I think I also have Squash Vine Borers.

Oooopppsss!!! I quoted myself.

I was reading on an organic site that red apple cider vinagar in with the pepper spray would kills bugs also not the 20% for herbecides the household type you buy at the store also said to use Bicaronate of soda in the mix for insects.
Jimmy

Do you have a link to that site?

I know some things work better on some bugs, and others work better on other bugs.

I would like a good general purpose spray.

This is the one I was looking at http://www.nopesticides.org/ got that off of dirtdoctor.com hope this helps some
Jimmy

As I was laying in bed last night, I swore I could little voices coming from the garden..The voices kept saying


.....Water I need Ice Water....

I went out and looked I didn't see any bugs.

need to get rid of box elder bugs. they dont seem to bite, but this year there was a literal swarm all over my house. i have a 15 mo old. so it needs to be safe indoors too. Yes the little buggers are getting in.. but safe for birds. i have a family of cardinals out back, 3yrs and counting. and multiple familys of blue jays. are the box elders bird food?????????????????????????????? or can i get rid of them somehow??? bugs really gross me out. just ask the family how many times ive scramed because they touched me...

besides BUGS, does anyone know of something safe organic to get rid of MICE???????? again i have a 15mo old baby girl, and we have a mouse problem, ever since the neighbor did work on her house. we live in a duplex, two houses connected. BUT IT HAS TO BE SAFE FOR BABY AND plants> IS THERE ANYTHING WE CAN USE?????????? oh , and the box elder bugs seem to be less since the frost came..

The safest/organic way to get rid of boxelder bugs, *or any bug as a matter of fact, inside the home* is with a vacuum cleaner.
Just give'em a good ole fashioned vacuumin' and they're in your bag...gone..

And a prevention method is usually in the Fall time, and tha'ts like caulking up cracks and crevis's they can crawl into and come in your house (fixing/plugging cracks in any foundation areas' or your roof)...fix a broken window or the screens and check on the door jams for a tight fit...
Basic maintence of home..
But it can be very hard to completely keep them out...

box elder bugs are virtually impossible to get rid of. they get into the insulation in the walls and that's that (and that's from two different exterminators).

i've got them too. around here we call them the halloween bugs because that's when they seem to be most active and because they are black with an orange stripe...and yes, you will see swarms on a nice warm day - they come out of the walls (usually west- and north-facing) to do their thing and then they go back in when it gets dark.

i see some inside on occassion - and then only one or two.

they don't bite (and, in fact, won't even fly unless you force them too) and they don't seem to carry any diseases, so i wouldn't worry too much about your baby. they're just a harmless annoyance.

i don't like bugs either...these are one of the few that don't totally skeeve me out. if i find one inside the house, i just swat it with a rolled up newspaper and then scoop it up and throw it in the trashcan.

Halloween bugs. makes them sound funny. lol. they are not so bad since the frost, this week we are doing the house check, plastic on windows , storm windows etc. THe other day i was sitting on the floor, changing the baby, and i thought there was a spider on my foot. I screamed , scared the baby, mady my other girls jump!!!! yelled at my husband to "GET IT" HE starts laughing and tells me its one of the box elders.... then he threw it away for me...lol.

me again.. a couple of box elders still in the house. we just ignore them, or vacume.. the mice are a pain though.. we have used everything. but since baby girls touched a snap-trap, we have resorted to poisen.. behind appliences only, where she cannot reach.. they seem to go outside to die so thats good. we only have to pick them up with the rake and put in garbage bags..

Here are a few thoughts that i have on all that i have read above

1. just because you read it on the Internet it is not true.

2. Many of the home remedies do not account for phytotoxicity problems (burning up your plant foliage or just doing damage to your plants)

3. Is there data to show they really work, not just anecdotal? often just water will knock insects off of plants and water can even kill some.

4. do you know how it will impact your plants long term. Case in point, Ivory has been used a lot for controlling pests but did you know that a study was done comparing Ivory to insecticidal soap? they found that the plants treated with Ivory produced less tomatoes then those with insecticidal soap treatments.

This is why know what are you doing is sooo important. I am not saying that some of these home remedies do not work but just be smart about what you are doing. Also just because it is homemade does not mean it is not just as toxic to the beneficial insects.

I have put on my website a list of companies that supply organic products for horticulture. I have no financial ties to them. I have been doing several lectures on organics and these are products I have come across.
Organic products for horticulture

For mice I use snap traps or sticky traps . No chemicals there .

for mice i use cats it seems to work well