Natural ways to get rid of bugs in the Garden

Some bugs are just too hard to get rid of. Most of them you don’t even see until they invaded your plants.
Here are my quick easy, and natural fixes for most garden bugs I’ve had to deal with.

**Spray the stems, branches, and under the leaves with a water soap solution. Mix a solution of one gallon water, one tablespoon dish soap (plain old dish soap with nothing else added to it, as in no anti bacterial, or scents) Put it in a spray bottle and make sure you label it.

Don’t over soak your plants use it gently. I find that spraying a paper towel and rubbing the stems, leaves is best when getting rid of colonies and or alot of bugs. After that a little spray once in awhile should keep the bugs at bay. Most bugs don’t like the scent of the soap. The best time is in the afternoon, and watch out your not killing bugs that need to be in the garden, like ladybugs. Those eat other bugs so they are a welcome sight to see. You can buy some lady bugs at most garden nurseries, which is a great activity for the kids to get their hands into as well.
**Another trick is to take a banana peel and drape it or rub it over the plants. Black flies, with fast growing colonies eat plants. They hate the smell and feel of banana. The banana’s also add  essential nutrition to the soil anyways, so just like the eggshells, keep the banana peels.They break down very quickly, so you can either use whole peels or cut them up and mix them into the soil. Rub them against rose plant branches, or other plants to keep some nasty bugs away. (Have snails? here’s a post about how to keep them away) 
** For other bugs that aren’t going away take a cotton ball with rubbing alcohol.  If the plant is delicate water the solution down, otherwise it shouldn’t really hurt the plants. Dab along the colonies to kill them and they shouldn’t come back.

My Strawberry plants seem to already be filled with bugs and ants. Though ants are alright in the garden, they damage the berries quickly.

**Ant Trouble-
A natural and safe way to Keep Ants away from places you don’t want them in is powders right from your pantry!  Powdered red chili pepper, paprika, and dried peppermint are excellent household items you can safely use around the house, your garden and kids as well as pets are perfectly fine. Sprinkle them around the plants or areas you do not want them to cross, ants will not cross the lines. You can also do this in the house, your door ways, windows.

**My garden has a problem with white flies as well, one bug that wiped my zucchini out completely a few years ago. My solution is, lots of yellow!  Why yellow? Well I have no idea, I read they love yellow, which is most likely why they went after my Zucchini with the big fat yellow flowers on it. Either way, put some sticky yellow traps, around the plants. Also the spray bottle with soap works as well, any damaged leave or overly  infested  leaves need to be removed quickly as white flies will end up taking the whole plant.
 **Another honest to true method is use your vacuum, or even shop vac. It’ll at least get rid of what’s on the plant. Shake the plant to make the white flies air born and suck them up. Just don’t, suck the plant up. ….

**My last trick up my sleeve is nectar. This is a cause and effect thing, I placed some hummingbird feeders around my garden, mostly near the plants that always have bugs infested around them. While you can attract the hummingbirds you are attracting bees and parasitic wasps to the garden. Bees will pollinate your flowers, and plants, the wasps will feast on your white flies. Now how’s that for nature ? All you had to do was feed the birds, who knew! You can also plant some nectar rich flowers and it’ll do the same thing.

As I find more home remedies I’ll share them!