Natural Pesticide and Fungal Treatment for Your Organic Garden

This year with our garden has been utterly horrible. The ph in the soil was not right for our flowers, it was lacking nitrogen, then we got swarmed with pests and now some of them are developing a fungus from the heavy rains and high humidity in the city this month. I can't win!

Our garden boxes were first built about four years ago when we wanted to grow some produce. The past two years we have been keeping the vegetable and spice plants in large pots because of the inconsistent amount of sunlight our yard gets. When the year moves on I can simply move the pots to the other end of the yard to get enough sun. Now the boxes are being used to grow some nice flowers to add some color to the yard...or at least we're trying to.

Living in the middle of the city can be horrible when trying to garden, especially when you have neighbors who dump their garbage in the alleyway right behind your back yard! This is how we get so many pests in the yard. I clean and scrub every night, prune and pull weeds in the yard, but the alleyway is full of dog poop, cat poop, and rotting garbage that we can't always get to to clean up. It breeds disease, bacteria, and pests that we are having a horrible time controlling this year. I hate using chemicals so I have been trying find natural remedies to treat the plants and prevent pests.

Last night I made my first batch of an all natural pesticide and fungal treatment. When purchasing chemical pesticides and treatments you are not only killing the "bad" insects, but you are also preventing the good ones entering your garden and giving your plants some tender loving care. I noticed that a lot of my plants have been eaten through by what appeared to be slugs, but I was also concerned of other pests, mostly flying ones, attacking the plants, plus the fact that a few had developed mold from the humidity, do I found this great recipe to knock all three out at once. Luckily I keep these things handy anyway, so it cost me only a dollar for a big enough spray bottle

• a tablespoon vegetable oil or canola oil
  
• two tablespoons baking soda
  
• a few drops of a gentle soap (I prefer Dr. Bronner's organic soaps)

Mix these three ingredients into a quart of warm water, shake up, and apply to both sides of your plant's leaves.Apply just before dark so that your plants do not burn in the hot sunlight. I applies my first batch last night and found that all the pests, except for the flies that is, were nowhere to be found later that evening. As far as the baking soda treating the fungus I have to wait a bit to see if it works, but I intend to keep up this regiment as long as it works!