Garden Tip: Pesticide and Insecticide Containers

Use an old one gallon plastic milk jug to store your own homemade insecticides/pesticides.  Most milk jugs end up unused and in a landfill anyway.  Make sure you label your jug as “Organic Insecticide – Do Not Drink” to keep others from mistaking it as water.  At least with homemade insecticide, someone who drinks it will get at the most a really bad taste in his mouth or a stomach ache.  Now for the homemade insecticide/pesticide, use this recipe:

• 3 Tablespoons of liquid detergent
• 1 gallon of warm water (such as dawn)
• 6 tablespoons of chopped garlic or 2 garlic bulbs
• 3 tablespoons of cayenne pepper or red peppers

(For variations of this recipe, click here for the full blog)

In addition to this recipe, you can also use onion, jalapeno and garlic scraps.  If you are cooking and have these leftover veggies, chop them up after cooking dinner and let them sit in warm water overnight. Bugs hate garlic, spicy stuff and onions!  Milk jugs can also be made into planting pots by cutting off the top half of the jug.  Recycle, Reduce, Reuse!