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garlic spray
Steve Brown2
Posts: 2
in Talkback
In this mouth issuse Pippa said about use garlic to make pest deterrent so how do you make it and when to use it
0
Posts
Split a couple of garlic bulbs, use a garlic crusher to crush the clovers into a big pan of water and boil until tend then sieve out the garlic. I add oliver oil to the fluid at this stage. Then store the fluid in plastic bottles until ready for use. I store in milk bottle cartons.
I only have a small area to spray so use one of the smaller plastic sprayers which can be picked up from places like Wilko for a few £'s. If you've sieved the fluid garlic doesn't block up the nozzle when you spray.
Now I'm happy to be wrong but the garlic puts off snails and slugs, anphids breath through their skin and if there are any on your plants when you spray the olive oil coats their skin.
I start spraying mid to late March every few weeks. Then when I've made some seaweed feed, spray the plants with this instead of the garlic and mulch plants with the spent seaweed, it's a bit
but the smell actually goes quite quickly and seaweed dries black.
I've heard that washing up liquid works as a replacement for the oil ?
Does this mixture need to be diluted before use ?
Don't forget that garlic is highly poisonous for cats!
Chris...I don't use washing up liquid in the mix and am a none believer that it's kind to your hands...it's a detergent and if you need to spray again me thinks washing up liquid isn't going to be kind to the plant being sprayed no matter what the quantity.
Thanks, i'll stick to oil.
Could you give the exact quantities of water to oil and at what strength its used in the watering can or spray bottle please.
Presumably you need to use olive oil for tomatoes and other mediterranean plants but plain old vegetable oil will do for cabbages etc.?
Hang on, I'll ask hugh fernley wotsit.
I don't follow an exact science in terms of quantities of oil/water and garlic. Just use the bigest pan I have, fill it with water and crush at least one full bulb of garlic sometimes two into the water, I choose any that may have started shooting first although none have yet, so then I'll use choose the smallest. The skin gets crushed and thrown in too.
As Edd say's it's the smell that confuses pests, the mix is also good for putting off slugs and snails. It doesn't kill them they just go and eat something else but if you'vre sprayed all your plants they might prefer to dine next door
.
You can use any cooking oil, I cook with olive oil and buy it on special offer throughout the year to use when preserving stuff. In a ltre milk container there's probably about an inch when the fluid settles. Give the carton a good shake when you come to use it so the oil mixes into the water and pour into the sprayer.
I just use the pound hand sprayers from Wilko for the back garden.