Organic Insecticide for Vegetables and Flowers

Here’s the overview:  Last year, I started my herb/vegetable garden.  I decided to start small so I planted only a few vegetables: cucumbers, green peppers and collard greens.  While my cucumbers and green peppers did very well, it was really hard keeping aphids off of my collards.  Aphids are these tiny bugs that strip your vegetables of their nutrients.  Unless you know what to look for, these insects can easily go unnoticed.  They usually set up their empire under the leaf of the plant where they go undetected.  Your collards will go from being healthy to looking wilted and dried out in less than a week.  This was my first experience with aphids so I had no idea what to do.  For immediate results I went and got a powder substance called Seven.  I used the chemical pesticide (which can be used on vegetables) mainly because the aphids had gotten so bad that I had to find immediate control.  It became an every day problem because the aphids had multiplied so much.  Some websites said just to blast them with a water hose, but the aphids were back on the plant after a few hours and it was impossible to blast them all off, mainly because they were under the leaves and it was hard to get the underside of the plant.  By the end of the summer, the aphids had overtook my collards.  Needless to say they ultimately won the battle last year.  So this year, I decided to prepare early and get my game plan together!  I wanted to also find a cheaper and more organic way to keep pests and insects from my garden.  The chemical pesticides worked ok, but you had to really scrub the vegetables to ensure you were not ingesting the chemicals and they were also very expensive.  Seven can cost $10 for a small bottle and once it rained, you had to retreat the area.  Not to mention that your garden looks terrible once the powder is dusted on the plants.  In my quest to go green and reduce waste, I came across a few articles and organic recipes to help kill aphids and other garden pests.  After much research I found that surprisingly plain old soap works wonders!  So here is my own personalized recipe:

For basic insecticide (all plants):

5 Tablespoons of liquid detergent (preferably citrus or dawn works fine)
1 gallon of warm water

Spray the mixture on your plants weekly paying special attention to the undersides of your plants.  Be careful not to spray too much on the actual flowers or fruit of some plants as it can slow down the production of the fruit or flower.  This mixture also works well on plants such as hostas to repel slugs.  Believe it or not, you can basically just save your dishwater after you wash dishes and just pour it on your non-edible plants.

For non-edible plants and to ward off slugs even further and rabbits, try:

5 Tablespoons of liquid detergent (preferably citrus or dawn works fine)
1 gallon of warm water
6 tablespoons of chopped garlic or 2 garlic bulbs
3 tablespoons of cayenne pepper or red peppers

For indoor plants, try:

5 Tablespoons of liquid detergent (preferably citrus or dawn works fine)
1 gallon of warm water
1 cup of rubbing alcohol

You can use an old one gallon milk jug to store the insecticide or you can buy an inexpensive hand sprayer at your local hardware store.  For more ways to repel pests, view my blog on Natural Ways to Repel Insects.