Natural Pest Control

A couple of weeks ago I noticed some cabbageworm damage on my....cabbage - duh.

Besides geese that eat anything and everything and bunnies that squeeze through the fence the other pest we have in the garden would be cabbageworms. Rather than letting the little buggers continue eating my plants I decided it was time to fight back. Checked into Mr. Google-Pants and found a couple of different things that could work. One of the remedies required more ingredients than I was willing to put into the spray, but the other...well, it was the winner.

My search for Essential Oils and cabbageworms took me to MIGardener and an all-purpose garden pest control spray. This recipe only required three different essential oils, some dish soap and water. That's it! So easy! Go HERE to get more details on the recipe.

BUT...The real test would be how effective is the spray in action?

So I ordered up my inexpensive essential oils (marigold, peppermint and rosemary) each cost 10ml bottle was less than $10 - thank you very much Amazon. Received the delivery on July 3rd and mixed up the solution and sprayed my plants on the 4th. As I sprayed I made note of how many worms I saw and the damage that had already been done. At that time the damage wasn't extensive, but I'm sure that the worms would be back in no time to munch more of the plants. We gotta put an end to that! By the weekend I noticed that there wasn't MORE damage - ALRIGHT! The first spray was a little on the light side so I decided to spray the plants a little more. Couldn't hurt right?

It rained a little this week so yesterday I spray the plants a little more. Checking underneath most of the leaves I found that the damage didn't increase AND only found one green worm trying to make a meal of my plant. Sorry dude...spritz, spritz, spritz!

July 9, 2019

Now, the total cost of the essential oils was $25.47, but the solution is concentrated, so only a small portion would be used to mix up a gallon of the spray (although, I only have a quart size spray bottle right now). Essential oils are super powerful, so even the tiniest amount makes a difference. The fact that I'm not using chemicals in the garden is worth it though. If I don't spray this is what might happen:

photo credit storyblocks video

It's not a pretty sight, but it's also one that I don't want in my garden.

What kind of pest control do you use? Comment below :)

Farm Life is the best life - bugs and all!