How to Eliminate Plant Pests Naturally: Grandma Tried It and Didn’t Want Anything Else

As you know, I care a lot about the plants in my garden and want them to always be healthy. That’s why I’d like to suggest a natural way to get rid of plant pests. For instance, I usually use soft soap, which you can find in most stores that sell garden and vegetable garden equipment, nurseries, agricultural consortiums, garden centers, or online. Alternatively, for occasional use, we can choose natural coconut oil laundry soap. I’ll explain how to use both—it’s very simple!

What we need

First, a premise: whichever soap we choose, we still need to dilute it in water. In the case of solid coconut oil laundry soap there is an extra step. For soft soap, however, it is advisable to read the correct dosage on the package label. To prepare our natural pesticide we need:

• 5-10 g per liter of water, for the solid soap
• About 10 ml per liter of water, for the soft soap in liquid solution
• 1 clean, empty spray bottle

Soft soap pesticide

To prepare the soft soap pesticide, we need to follow a few simple steps:

• Wemeasure out 10 ml of soap and pour it into a large jug.
• We add water until we reach one liter. We will notice that it also makes some foam, precisely because it is soap.
• We pour the mixture into a spray bottle.
• We treat our plant by spraying the liquid directly on leaves and branches.

Natural coconut oil solid soap pesticide

As I mentioned, preparing coconut oil solid soap pesticide requires a little extra step-nothing complicated, in fact.

• Let’s cut a small piece of soap, about 5-10 g.
• Let’s put it inside a large pitcher.
• Let’s pour some hot water to melt it and stir well.
• When it is completely dissolved, let’ s add cold water until we reach one liter. Be sure not to make the mistake of spraying the plants with hot water!
• We pour the mixture into a spray bottle.
• We treat our plant, spraying the liquid directly on leaves and branches.

How and when to use soap pesticide

Now that we have prepared our natural pesticide, let’s remember to use it when our plants need it most. Forpreventive purposes, to prevent pests from attacking them, it should be sprayed once a month. Of course, if it rains, the treatment should be repeated. In case of an insect or pest attack-as happened to my lemon plant-we need to spray the pesticide 2 times 5 days apart.
We do not treat the plants during the hottest hours of the day: choose early morning or afternoon when the sun has already gone down.
We can use soap pesticide for all plants: in the vegetable garden, in the garden, on the balcony, in the apartment. We pass the treatment quietly on leaves and branches, but avoid spraying the flowers: it may affect pollination.

What to do if the pesticide does not work?

In case we have not succeeded in eliminating insects or pests after the treatment, our plant should be rinsed and the pesticide should be sprayed again with theaddition of neem oil, which creates an unfavorable environment for pests. About 10 ml per 1 liter is needed.

Can Marseille soap be used?

Among the questions you asked me, someone asked if it is possible to use Marseille soap, the kind used for washing clothes. The answer is yes, as long as you read the composition of the ingredients well: it must be real soap and not a preparation with lots of synthetic substances. You can use it in the same doses, but I’ll give you a little advice: once dissolved in water and poured into the sprayer it is good to use it all, because after a while it becomes like a soap gel and it is difficult to get it out of the container.

Can dish soap be used?

This question unlocked a memory for me, because grandma-when she didn’t have Marseille soap on hand-used dish soap, indeed! She would soap all the leaves of the plant, use a sponge to clean them thoroughly, and then rinse it completely.