Really want to make my first garden all organic and homemade everything so I was wondering if anyone had any good advice on homemade pesticides and plant food ... growing all veggies fruit and herbs not flowers some are already in my above ground garden some are still seedlings inside my home... very excited about gardening my first year!
Do you have a stable near you or have friends with barnyard animals ? You can make a manure tea or just work it into the soil. That makes plant food that you can use on anything that you grow. Horse manure does not have to be composted as long as it has thoroughly dried. Other types need to be composted before adding to soil but not for manure tea. Many bugs, aphids and tiny critters can be removed with a mixture of dish soap and water. For others you can get a cat flea and tick spray which uses pyrethrin made from chrysanthemums. It is approved for organic gardening. About a tablespoon of the pyrethrin to a quart of water and a tablespoon of dish soap is all you need. Another good foliar feed is Epsom salts if you plan on growing vegetables or can be worked into the soil and watered in.
Hiya Nicole, That was a good posting from Mart wasn't it? Here are some old postings on here you could read and think about: http://www.gardenstew.com/threads/use-stinging-nettles-to-make-a-liquid-fertilizer.19288/ http://www.gardenstew.com/threads/bocking-14-root-cuttings-for-propagation.31608/#post-287058 http://www.gardenstew.com/threads/comfrey-a-different-kind-of-fertilizer.9181/ Have you thought about using green manures? Another thing that you could think about doing sooner or later is to make and maintain a compost pile to amend your garden soil with. Good luck with your research. I hope that you will read some useful comments on here.
I was actually thinking about the compost pile today! Definitely give it a shot and I will get on these articles as soon as I get home after work thank you so much for all of your help !
Compost is the best. You could also start a worm bin. It is super easy and worm castings are a fantastic fertilizer! You said no flowers in your garden. I would recommend to add some. There are a lot of flowers that help out a veggie garden. Some help deter certain pests and help attract good bugs to your garden. A lot of veggies rely on pollinators to set fruit. Plus they make everything look nice.
Without pollinator attracting flowers you will have a very low produce output. Marigolds scattered around the veggie garden will ward off pests that would otherwise destroy your veggies. Find plants that are bee and butterfly friendly, it is best to stick with the Genus species of the plants instead of going for the interesting colored cultivars, those are for pretty but studies have shown that many of them are not helpful when it comes to attracting pollinators. Veggie plants do not bloom long enough for very many pollinators to find them and help in the process so you really can not depend solely veggie blooms to work properly.
