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Making own softsoap

HappyflowerHappyflower Posts: 10
in Fruit & veg

Hello, hope you can help. I have blackfly on my runner beans and just don't have to time to keep rubbing them off so I want to try using softsoap. I am going to buy pure castile lquid soap and would like to know the ratio of soap to water please. I have looked on tinternet but keep finding differnet ratios so I'm a bit confused.

Thanks for your help

Posts

  • BobTheGardenerBobTheGardener Posts: 11,384

    2 or 3 drops in a 1 litre hand sprayer is ample.  All the soap does is break the surface tension of the water so that the aphids are covered by a thin layer of water which suffocates them.  The soap serves no other purpose (ie it doesn't act as a poison) so adding more is only likely to damage your plants.

    A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
  • HappyflowerHappyflower Posts: 10

    Thanks Bob!

  • HappyflowerHappyflower Posts: 10

    Well, I never did spray my beans with the homemade softsoap. Turns out nature knows best and I have been noticing a few ladybird lavae feasting away and so far they seem to be controling the blackfly population to some extent. I've been noticing the odd ladybird there too so I'm hoping for reinforcements soon! image

  • BobTheGardenerBobTheGardener Posts: 11,384

    Great news Happyflower!  My broad beans were covered from head to foot in blackfly but rather than spray them I decided to leave them to see what would happen as there were one or two ladybirds on them.  A few weeks later and they are now almost swarming with ladybirds, their larvae with lots of ladybirds in the pupal stage, and most of the blackfly are gone.  Now I have my own army of ladybirds flying off and clearing up aphids throughout the rest of the garden. image  You can't beat nature! image

    A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,138

    Fantastic - the soft soap treatment would have killed the ladybird larvae too.

    Now you're getting a real balance in the garden image


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • Green MagpieGreen Magpie Posts: 806

    Well, my broad beans were left for a week while I was on holiday, and now the newest row is ruined by blackfly. Some of the plants are totally black and the tiny pods all shrivelled. I did see one solitary ladybird, but it obviously hasn't made much impact.

    So I have resorted to a soap-and-oil spray to try to save the remaining plants.  I did remove the ladybird and put it elsewhere,  but just waiting for its friends and relations to turn up and help was clearly not going to work. Sometimes nature has no particular inclination o do the things we want, and the blackfly were definitely on the winning side until now.

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