Gardeners put a lot of time and effort into their vegetable gardens, and it’s incredibly frustrating to see their hard work thwarted by animal and insect pests.
It’s next to impossible to physically sit and defend your garden 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Instead, let these hacks do the work for you and keep pests out of your garden.
Neem oil
Neem oil is the best way to protect your plants. Neem oil prevents development of insects and their ability to proliferate.
Add a couple of drops of any detergent, 1/2 of water, and 1 teaspoon of Neem oil in a spray bottle, shake, wait for 8 hours. Then drench the soil and the surrounding soil. Repeat every week.
Remove aphids with soap and water
You can prevent and remove mild infestations with a nice bathe, made of water and a soap, since the oil-cutting formula successfully eliminates the waxy coating on the aphids and makes them prone to dehydration. Add 2 tbsp of dish soap in 1 gallon of water and mix well. Spray your plants.
Control ants in the garden with borax and honey
Ants are not that dangerous for your plants, yet their aphid farms can cause serious damage, because they have soft-bodied pests that can stuck plant to buds. Make sure you control the ants before you get some complications.
Mix borax and honey and prepare a paste. Apply this paste around the base of the stems of your plants infested with aphids. This will dehydrate ants and it will serve as an organic ant-killer.
Coffee grounds
Sprinkle coffee grounds around the base of tender plants. The abrasiveness of the grounds coupled with the acidity creates a barrier that deters slugs and snails.
Cornmeal
Not only does cornmeal keep weeds at bay, but sprinkling it around your plants helps if you have an ant infestation. The ants try to eat the granules, but they cannot digest it and slowly starve.
Forks
Stick forks in thegarden soil prong side up to keep animals from munching on your plants.
Irish spring soap
Mammals like rabbits and deer find the stench of Irish Spring soap loathsome, so it works as a perfect deterrent. And because the soap is rainproof, you don’t have to worry about it turning to suds as soon as it gets wet.