Homemade Organic Insect Spray for the Vegetable Garden ~ Random Tidbits

Now that I have many plants in the garden, I have mixed up my first homemade organic bug spray for my vegetable garden.

I found one recipe online.

I've had terrible times with leaf eating bugs, eating away at my collard greens, and other greens. This year I'm giving them dose of bug protection.

I'm determined to be able to stock up (and eat) the beet greens and the radish greens this season.

My green beans are being eaten by something, so they'll get a dose too. I'll let you know how well this works.

If I have another spray bottle, I'll be mixing water with essential (organic) peppermint oil, to keep my roses pest free.

A few heirloom yellow pear (cherry) tomatoes are now on my herb garden, with more basil planted. I promised Hubby I could squeeze them in somewhere, ha ha! It's his fault for dragging me to the hardware store for two hours. I think my fitbit steps were all gained from that visit.

I saw my first butterfly this season. They just love zinnias, so I try to plant them in all the flower beds.

Well, I had high intentions of a good intentional work out this morning, but I caught a bug somehow. Most likely from the hardware store, where there are no sanitizer wipes for carts. My throat is pretty sore, so I'm taking it easy (even though it's the best outdoor weather day this week), and sipping hot teas and rubbing some organic lemon oil and jojoba oil on my lymph nodes. When that all kicks in, I'll start spraying my vegetable garden for bugs.

Tomorrow is the last day of school for the kids.

Question

I have asked this before, but I know I follow a few writers who have written (and published) novels. What is the best free or best least expensive (simple like Word) writing software to use that is not Google Docs? Thanks! I'll be back with an update soon I hope. But I do appreciate your help, because I cannot find the information some of you suggested.

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Horsetail Salve ~ A "first" this Year

We purchased some horsetail salve to try last year. It is said to help with severely dry, cracked skin. My husband was the first to try it, with very, very dry and cracked hands from work. He loves it! He joked I could not have it back. I started the infused, horsetail oil the last part of March. Something I learned: horsetail is also called shavegrass. I infused horsetail in oil, and strained it. I then made horsetail salve. I remembered to label my jar with what oil(s) I used, so I can journal this all in my "Herbal Remedies" journal. I often forget to write the oil used. Now, the one we bought, has more in it than I put in ours, as far as ingredients (the purchased salve had lanolin, and aloe). We'll see if ours works just as good. I added the sage essential oil, and vitamin E oil. A "first" time experience for us this year. I bought the larger tins at a seed store in an Amish area last year. They a...

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Chit Chat

The pickings are slim right now, but we'll take anything we are blessed with. I made a salad and cleaned the beans. The rain will give us more for a meal in a day or so. The green beans are every so slowly coming on this season. I made a batch of homemade granola, and instead of my homemade vanilla extract, I used my homemade Christmas Spice Extract. It smelled so good in the oven, and while cooling. I picked some purslane, and am doing an experiment with it this time. Update soon. Chit Chat © August 2026 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart

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Comments

Mama Pea said…

I often have problems with bugs making lace out of my early greens, too. Last year I found if I planted the "early" greens about a month later, they weren't bothered at all. (Different cycle of the bugs, I'm sure.) I can get away doing that because our climate often doesn't get too warm for those crops. You would probably have trouble doing that because of your heat. 'Course, you can grow tomaters (!) and I can't, but we won't get into that now. ;o] So far this year, no damage seen . . . but it's still early.

Hope you shake your "bug" you picked up when you were out and about. That's why I stay home!!

May 28, 2015 at 10:48 AM

Sam I Am...... said…

Beautiful butterfly and thanks for the recipe for the bug spray as I need it! Something is eating my peppers and there's some scaly thing on my tomatoes! Just in time!

May 28, 2015 at 11:25 AM

Pioneer Woman at Heart said…

Mama Pea, I hope the spray works. I would like a nice supply of greens in the freezer this year. Breakfast today is applesauce and toast. Hopefully my own "bug" will leave today too.

May 28, 2015 at 11:37 AM

Sam I am, you are welcome, I'm about to go out and spray plants.

RB said…

Be careful where you plant cherry tomatoes because many species come back year after year, even though they don't say so, and will rapidly invade any garden bed you put near them. When we were younger, our Dad let us plant some, but we had to plant them on the other house alongside the driveway, well away from the garden. That worked well. We've even had some come up in the compost pile and by the burn pile here at the house, where some seeds obviously got mixed in with the house paper/cardboard trash the year before (probably off of a paper plate that held a salad), and sprouted this year among the compost and ashes.

Got all our 'maters planted. Now on to the herbs...parsley, sage & thyme. (No rosemary, not real fond of rosemary...sorry Simon & Garfunkel. LOL)

God bless.

RB
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May 29, 2015 at 11:09 PM

Thanks RB, good tips! I'm drying more thyme today.

May 30, 2015 at 9:18 AM

Kristina - Have you ever suspended tied herbs upside down in a brown paper lunch sack and then hung it from a hook to dry?
Supposedly the herbs fall into the bottom of the bag as they dry and fall off the stems. Then it's just a simple matter of tossing the tied stems and tipping the bag into a jar to get the dried herbs.
I'm gonna try that this year.
I gathered parsley seeds that way last year. Cut the flowers when they appeared, tied the stems together with a small rubber band, hung the bunch of flowers upside down in a paper sack and attached the bunch to the side of the bag with a hair clippie, then I hung it from an 'S' hook off the side of a wire shelving unit, and as the flowers dried, all the seeds fell right into the bottom of the bag so I could gather them all up for this Spring. Worked well.
God bless.
RB
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May 30, 2015 at 3:36 PM

RB, I have never used the paper bag, but this year I would like to save basil seeds and other herbs. My rosemary never goes to flower over the gardening season, so I tend to re-buy if I kill it over winter (our country house is a bit too chilly for it I think). I even tried putting it by the wood stove.

May 31, 2015 at 8:03 AM

Always thought Rosemary would winter over if planted directly in the ground. Research online says it's not so.
Good to learn something ever day. Means the old bean is still in working order. LOL
God bless.
RB
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May 31, 2015 at 3:13 PM

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