Natural pest repelent

[Greg F]

Hi all,
A friend of mine that is a naturopath told me that a good pest repelent you can easily make yourself is garlic and chilli.
Basically she said to finely chop the garlic and chilli and put it in a pot of water on the stove and boil it for a while and then cool it down and strain it enough to use in a spray bottle. So far it seems ok. I ran out a little while ago and now some of my chinese elms have lost foilage to snails or something. Im not too sure as I didnt catch them in the act.
Does anyone else have any experience using this method or any input or advice.
Thanks and enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Greg

[Greg F]

Hasnt anyone heard of this metbod for their bonsai? Hope im not wasting my time doing it.

Greg

[terryb]

Hi Greg,

There have been many stories concerning using these (and other) ingredients to deter pests in the garden e.g. https://www.abc.net.au/gardening/factsh ... es/9430018

[Greg F]

G'day Terry thanks very much for the reply and link.
Today I found 3 of my smaller Chinese Elms with half the foilage gone and a few inches away way a fat snail. Very frustrating.

Greg

[Ryceman3]

I’ve heard this chilli and garlic thing several times before but to be honest I don’t know of anyone whose had sustained success with it. I assume it needs to be reapplied regularly (like after every watering) to maintain effectiveness and I guess that gets a bit hard after a while. I’m all for natural so I hope to be corrected by somebody... or maybe another alternative that is more effective?!?
In the end you gotta have something that works!

[MJL]

I’ve heard this chilli and garlic thing several times before but to be honest I don’t know of anyone whose had sustained success with it.

Clearly you don't have vampires in your neck of the woods.

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Just sayin'

(Just thought I'd quickly edit this entry... in taking the p!ss out of warding off vampires ... I was making no comment on the effectiveness of organic/natural pest potions. When I used to grow veggies I tried a few home-made natural repellants to varying degrees of success. These days my main go to sprays are store bought Pest Oil and Nature Soap ...despite their brand names, I am not sure how natural they are.)

Now.. back to vampires ... and you thought stakes were for lemon trees....

[Ryceman3]

Clearly you don't have vampires in your neck of the woods.

Not for a bit MJL... Hallowe’en was last month!

[terryb]

I’ve heard this chilli and garlic thing several times before but to be honest I don’t know of anyone whose had sustained success with it. I assume it needs to be reapplied regularly (like after every watering) to maintain effectiveness and I guess that gets a bit hard after a while.

I suspect you are correct Ryceman3, reapplication would probably be necessary after rain (or if you water from above). Don't know how effective this would be for slugs/snails either. Interestingly, I saw a TV ad last night for a commercial product https://www.richgro.com.au/products/fru ... ect-spray/. Scroll down to the ingredients - garlic, chilli, pyrethrum! I can guess what will be doing the work

I’m all for natural so I hope to be corrected by somebody... or maybe another alternative that is more effective?!?

Natural is a misnomer - think arsenic, nightshade, cadmium, lead. That said, I have been trying to cut my use of pesticides in the garden, particularly on things I eat. This also has the added benefits of not killing the predators that can do a great job in controlling the pests. For instance, as soon as any aphids appear these days, they pretty much get wiped out viewtopic.php?f=19&t=24820&p=249046&hil ... id#p249046. Caterpillars I just remove by hand as I'm watering, though they can be tricky to find. I have had success using bacterial sprays on tomatoes to control these and am trialing it on my natives to control webbing caterpillars.