I wanted to keep my plants pest free without using pesticides. I read up on it and tried a few and this is what I found.
My dad used to make an onion and garlic concoction
Back in the 80s, my dad used to chop up some onions and garlic, add water and let it ferment in milk jugs. He'd cut it about 5o% with water, then spray the plants. It did a good job, on the bad bugs (aphids, leafhoppers, gnats, and such). Things that ate your plants hated it, bees and butterflies still came to the garden (maybe even more so.
It also made the whole yard smell like old onion farts. It was hard admiring a yard full of beautiful 6-7 foot tall sensimilla plants when all your friends were busy holding their breath pretending not to notice. His girls were pretty tasty and stony, but I taste slight onion undertones on the exhale.
Cedarcide is another natural solution that works pretty well too. It certainly annoys and sometimes kills the bad bugs and even fleas. It is pretty expensive and only seems to annoy the bugs, and temporarily will make them all disappear, but they still come back after time. I bought the Cedarcide 1 gallon concentrate, cedar mulch chips to sprinkle on the yard from the same company, but still had those tiny black piss ants and various other bugs in my trees.
“Back in the 80s, my dad used to ferment onion and garlic with water then spray the plants. It did a pretty good job, but smelled like onion farts."
Here is Sister Mary Elephant on Guard Duty
“I read about natural pest control online and ran down the list. On day two I came across Ghost Mantis and predator aphids."
The aphids are just poured over your soil and they go to town on the tiny buggers. The Ghost mantises set up a post on a plant and pretty much stays there eating the bugs bigger than aphids and smaller than the mantises themselves.
The Ghost Mantis
