Soap sounds harmless enough. We wash our bodies with it, clean our vehicles with it, wash our dishes with it, and blow bubbles with it. But if our children drink it, it will make them sick. Toddlers have innocent, strange ideas of what might be tasty! Our toddlers aren't the only ones in our society that can become sick from soaps.
Soaps of different sorts are used as insecticides. A commercially sold soap called Neem oil soap is an oily solution which can work as both a repellant and as a fungicide. It can interfere with the good health of delicate plants, weak plants, new transplants, and drought stressed plants. The oil draws the sun to the leaf surface and can harm blossoms. It doesn't work well with plants like the bleeding heart, gardenia, and lantana. So, be sure to test it on a small area and give it a full day to see if any wilting occurs before you apply it to larger areas.
Some people control wasps by spraying them with a dishwashing liquid solution. But dishwashing soap solutions can harm some of your plants. Any detergents that contain ingredients to dissolve grease can hurt the outer protective layers of plants that need these protective layers for survival. Insecticidal soaps are not your everyday soaps found in the kitchen, laundry room, or bathroom. You wouldn't want to wash your baby with the same shampoo you use on your dog to control fleas.
There are many different types of soaps that we use in our homes for daily use that can be used to control insects, though. Controlling and repelling are not necessarily the same as destroying. Soaps also work to kill insects by penetrating the outer covering to cause cell leakage and dehydration.
If you need to protect your personal plants with your own homemade soap solutions, just make sure you know how to mix them properly and which plants won't tolerate them well. Also, learn which soaps to use. Palmolive, Joy, Dawn, Ivory, Dove, Tide, and Murphy's Oil Soap are some that are often used for insect control.
Soaps lose their effectiveness once they're dry. Homemade recipes don't have instructions. You should research before making them and be leery of buying any from someone else. Automatic dishwashing detergents are not recommended. If someone has used the wrong soap, it could harm your plants. You also don't want to apply during the heat of the day or in sunlight since the use of soaps could burn your plants. It is possible to condition hard water to be able to mix it with insecticidal soaps. You may have to add a de-foaming agent as well.
Soaps are safe for ladybugs and predaceous wasps. These are beneficial insects that help your garden and plants thrive. Not all types of the same insect are harmful to us. Predaceous wasps don't sting or bite. It's important to know which insects to keep and which to remove or destroy.
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A natural insecticide will kill insects, that much is certain. Natural insecticide has been used for centuries, at least. If you are a curious person, you might like to know how natural insecticide kills insects.
Diatomaceous Earth is a natural insecticide made of the skeletal remains of plankton. What it does is to puncture the bodies of the insects. Then, it dehydrates them. When this natural insecticide has done its work, unwanted insects will dry up and practically blow away.
Rotenone is a natural insecticide, as well. It is made from the roots of the derris plant. It does its killing by poisoning the stomachs of insects. However, it is slow-acting and needs to be reapplied often for maximum effect.
Rotenone also seems to keep insects away from plants. It will keep the insects from growing and will stop them from eating if they are not adequately poisoned. Sabadillia also kills by stomach poison.
From Ecuador and Kenya comes a species of chrysanthemum that yields a natural insecticide called pyrethrum. This natural insecticide destroys insects by paralyzing them. It works instantly and it works on most types of insects.
The only problem is that the pyrethrum will often wear off. The insects will come around after awhile. They are not killed after all. For this reason, it is often combined with a poison that finishes the insects off.
Natural insecticides used in the termite control industry work in a different way. They cause the termite to lose their appetite. In fact, they can't eat at all.
The natural insecticide will cause the termite to be disoriented due to damage to its nerve endings. (People and animals do not have these same nerve endings and so are safe.) Due to all these problems, the termite will eventually die.
A bacterium, Bacillus thurengiensis or Bt, is another natural insecticide that is popular these days. It is best used when the eggs of insects are just hatching. The young come out, eat the toxin, and are poisoned. They will stop eating and die of starvation.
Neem preparations get rid of insects in many ways. This natural insecticide repels the offending bugs by means of an active ingredient that mimics an insect hormone. It makes it hard, if not impossible, to digest food. It stops their cycle of reproduction. It works well on insects that chiefly eat leaves.
Some non-plant natural insecticides do their work by dehydration, as Diatomaceous Earth does. Chalk dries out insects on contact. Mineral oil either dries out or suffocates its victims.
A mixture of cow's milk, flour and water can be used as a natural insecticide. It is very good at killing the eggs of the insects. It also destroys insects themselves, by suffocation.
Corn meal can be sprinkled around plants to kill insects. If a tomato hornworm happens to eat some, the cornmeal will swell up in the insect's stomach. The insect will explode.
There are all kinds of ways to kill insects. Some are by simple poisons. Some ways are more exotic ways. It may not really be important to know how a natural insecticide kills insects; only that it does.
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Herb gardening is becoming more and more popular every day, and for a good reason. Herbs have practical value, serve a purpose, and with herb gardening you can actually use your plants. When most people think of herb gardening they automatically think of cooking, but herbs are also grown for their pleasant aroma and their beauty.
One important part of herb gardening is drying the herbs for use during the winter months, especially if you plan on cooking with them. First the tops of leafy herbs have to be cut, washed, and hung up for the water to evaporate. Then, tie stems together and hang up in a paper bag to dry. After two to three weeks they must be removed; crumble the leaves, dry them out in the oven, and store in a glass jar.
One of the most common herbs gown in herb gardening is basil. “Dark Opal” and regular green basil are beautiful additions to any garden and often used as decoration. Dark Opal has light pink flowers and dark red leaves. Basil isn’t just used for its looks; it is used for extra flavor in tomato juices and pastes.
Chives are very petite looking and resemble a blade of grass. They are much stronger than they look, however, and will grow well through a drought and a drought. Their toughness and sturdiness makes Chives a perfect plant for herb gardening, especially if the gardener doesn’t want plants that require a lot of hassle. Chives are good used in salads, egg dishes, and many different sauces.
Mint is also very simple to grow and is good to use in mint jelly, mint juleps, lemonade, and any other kind of fruity drink. Mint is also good in herb gardening for its unique minty smell. Two herbs that appear in nearly everyone’s herb garden are thyme and sage. Both of these herb gardening favorites are used for flavoring soups, chicken, turkey, pork, and other sausages. Sage is also grown sometimes for its beautiful blue spiked flowers.
Lavender is probably the best smelling herb in all of herb gardening and is often used in candles, as a perfume scent, and to improve the smell in linen chests. The light purple flowers smell absolutely lovely.
Other types of herbs often grown in herb gardening include borage (used in salads), chervil (used in egg dishes), sweet marjoram (flavors lamb, fish, salad, and soup), sesame (flavors crackers, cookies, and bread), and dill (flavors meats and used in pickles). Herb gardening allows gardeners to use herbs from their own garden for cooking, looks, and smell. Herb gardening will produce much fresher herbs with more flavor than store-bought herbs, and are a lot cheaper.
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