Tushar C Shah: July 2011

A guide to making your own all purpose organic pesticide from vegetables, at home.

I have copy/pasted the same from the original post by iPodGuy

Veg/Organic Pesticide

Monday, July 11, 2011

2:16 PM

Make an all purpose organic pesticide from vegetables

This instructable will show how I made a cheap, all-purpose organic pesticide for my herb & vegetable garden. It can be used on a variety of insects that live in the dirt or on the plants including worms, mites and other parasites.

This entire pesticide will eventually break down and be reduced to nothing, so it is OK to eat any herbs or vegetables that are growing. This is mainly intended for indoor use, but I see no reason why it wouldn't work outdoors as well.

Step 1Materials

The materials used to make the pesticide should be easy to obtain.

You will need:

an empty & clean gallon jug (such as a milk jug)
a spray bottle with spray nozzle
a funnel
a piece of cloth such as a shirt or bandanna
a pot that can hold 1 gallon
2 small onions
a jalapeÃ�Â±o pepper
a clove of garlic
some dish soap

Take 1 gallon of warm water, dump it in a pot and you're ready to begin making the pesticide.

Pasted from <http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-an-all-purpose-organic-pesticide-from-vegetab/>

Step 2Killer Salad

Take the vegetables and begin cutting them up. It doesn't have to be pretty, since nobody's going to eat it!

Chop up the 2 onions, the garlic and half or 3/4 of the jalapeÃ�Â±o pepper. The seeds can be left in, since they're hot too.

Blend all the veggies together until pasty in a blender. The killer salad is now a killer paste.

***Take care not to rub your eyes or face after handling the liquid or the vegetables. The pepper especially can really burn if it gets in the eye!***

Pasted from <http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-an-all-purpose-organic-pesticide-from-vegetab/step2/Killer-Salad/>

Step 3Making the killer soup

After everything has been blended, dump the paste into the pot of warm water and let it sit for 20 minutes.

The ground up vegetables and water will make the killer soup or tea. It's going to be mighty fragrant at this point. Just let all those offensive tastes and odors seep out into the water.

Pasted from <http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-an-all-purpose-organic-pesticide-from-vegetab/step3/Making-the-killer-soup/>

Step 4Straining out the veggies

Once the soup has been allowed to sit and a lot of the flavor and odor has mixed with the water, the liquid needs to be strained.

I used a funnel and bandanna to catch the vegetable particles as I strained the liquid into the gallon jug.

I tried using a coffee filter at first to strain the liquid, but it clogged easily. Cloth seems to work best.

The mush that collects in the cloth can be squeezed out into the jug and the leftover can simply be thrown out or put into a compost bin.

Pasted from <http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-an-all-purpose-organic-pesticide-from-vegetab/step4/Straining-out-the-veggies/>

Step 5Add some dish soap

After all the straining is complete, I added 2 tablespoons of dish soap to the liquid.

Keeping with the spirit of this being an organic, plant-friendly pesticide, I used a vegetable-based dish soap. It is free of petroleum-based chemicals, dyes and perfumes and biodegrades naturally.

If you are using a soap that is petroleum-based or has dyes or perfumes, try adding half of what I used.

The soap makes the already bad-tasting, stinky liquid soapy and even less palatable to the insects that inhabit the plants.

Pasted from <http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-an-all-purpose-organic-pesticide-from-vegetab/step5/Add-some-dish-soap/>

Step 6Using the pesticide

Using the funnel, fill the spray bottle up and set the nozzle to a light mist.

At this point, the rest of the liquid can be capped and stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Simply shake it up before it is used.

Take the spray bottle and spray the plants first. Try to get all over the plant including the stem and under the leaves. Spray the soil as well so that the top of it is wet.

What this liquid does is make every part of the plant that it touches unpalatable to the insect. The water evaporates and leaves behind the odor and flavor. It smells and tastes gross and they won't eat it. When they won't eat anymore, they eventually starve. The liquid will not kill the insects on contact, so do not get upset if you see increased activity after the application. They're simply struggling to find something to eat.

Treat every 4 or 5 days to kill off the pests and prevent newly-hatched babies from feeding. It may take 3 or 4 treatments, but the numbers should gradually decrease.

Pasted from <http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-an-all-purpose-organic-pesticide-from-vegetab/step6/Using-the-pesticide/>

The rains are here and it's the best time for doing whatever it was that one wanted to do by way of gardening.
I've been waiting for these days to come ever since September last in order to give a good head start to the vegetable patch that i have been meaning to put in our back garden.
Needless to say, sky rocketing rates of inflation along with the thought of "God only knows what kind of chemicals go into the produce that one consumes from the marketplace", made all the more sense to at least not only take a few simple steps towards self sufficiency but also have some control over what goes into the soil, thereby controlling what goes into the vegetables which in turn controls what goes in our bodies and mind.

Ever since i read the book 'The One - Straw Revolution by Sensei Masanobu Fukuoka, the father of "do nothing farming", i was hooked on to doing a little bit of cultivation myself.
In his preface to the Indian edition, Mr. Partap C Aggarwal writes:
"In order to emphasize the long history and world spread of natural farming, I began to call it rishi kheti. I also hoped that this would prevent it from being called Japanese kheti. Later, when i told Fukuoka this, he heartily endorsed rishi kheti. He said if Gandhiji were alive he would also have blessed rishi kheti.
As readers will soon discover, this book is not only about agriculture. It is concerned with the total lifestyle. Hence it devotes considerable attention to nutrition, health, science and technology and to simple living. More than all this Fukuoka emphasizes the spiritual underpinnings of his idea."

I would certainly encourage one and all who are interested in living the above mentioned lifestyle, to go out and buy this simple yet wonderful book. In fact to that end, i keep a few extra copies to gift to good friends who may be interested in reading the same.

I would also like to share here, some basic principles of Permaculure as practiced and taught by someone i met recently.
I simply loved her opening remark "Feed the Soil, it's alive". It's simple and it makes sense as also it bolsters my views of monitoring what i put in the soil for my vegetable patch. Would i want to continuing to poison my family and myself through the chemicals in the vegetables? If no, then should I be feeding chemicals to the soil that will yield my produce? You certainly don't need me to answer that.

I quote below some basic principles of soil management as shared by Clea Chandmal

"1. *Feed the soil, it’s alive!* The soil is a living ecosystem, feed it

as if you were feeding a living thing, and it will build up, it will “grow”.

far more effective than feeding the plants themselves, feed the soil and

your plants will thank you much more for it.

2. * Plants prefer to grow like they do in nature…*

Try to emulate the patterns of nature wherever possible, they’re far

superior to anything humans can come up with. Plant trees, with shrubs and

ground covers* under them* . Add a few climbers on taller tress as in a

forest! They all look after each other and create a microclimate which helps

them grow better. And please, no wide spaces with bare dirt, you don’t have

a tractor to drive between your plants, so cover it up, otherwise nature

will cover it up for you, with her emergency repair crews, the pioneer

plants (who are often referred to by the derogatory term ‘weeds,

opportunists, invasives’).

3. MULCH, MULCH MULCH......cover the ground with live mulch (a usefull

groundcover) or a mix of dry leaves. make clear walking paths free of the

mulch if you are afraid of snakes. Mulch prevents water evaporation, is food

for soil organisms, provides a cool environment for beneficial soil

organisms to do their work, suppresses weeds in a vegetable plot, prevents

rain washing away newly planted seeds, prevents soil compactation and when

decomposed increases the water holding capacity of the soil.

4. * Plants need companions too, and they need variety…*

Create diversity – successful gardening is like a social party. If

everyone was like you, it would be terribly monotonous! It’s the same with

plants, they all have different qualities, and lend their unique

contribution when growing together. Use companion plants; some repel pests,

some strengthen their neighbours against disease, some mask the scent of

their friends from pests to stop them getting eaten. They all get by with a

little help from their friends, so don’t be afraid to mix it up a bit!

5. * Plants have a different sense of ‘order’ to you!*

Don’t impose human ideals of order on plants when it works against

them!!! Don’t line up identical plants like soldiers in a military parade.

Unlike the military, plants are peaceful, and are actually weakened in these

arrangements! Other than not having a diversity of helpful companions, they

are left open, vulnerable and exposed. Nothing would make a lettuce-eating

pest happier than rows and rows of lettuce in a nice line. When they’re done

with one, they hop to the next, with minimal effort! Even better, no other

plants that could serve as homes for pest-eating insects and their young, so

it’s a pest heaven and totally safe! Plants prefer to be safely scattered in

the crowd of other plants, if one goes down, the rest are safe! Use

“planting guilds” to make it harder for pests and better for plants!

6. *Don’t be afraid to experiment!*

It’s only by trying that you actually truly learn something first hand.

…. Try different things and see what works best for the plants on your area.

There are so many possibilities that you can never work out in your head, so

let nature do the work for you. Put the seed or plant in the ground and see

what happens. Try different species, locations, gardening styles, you name

it. It keeps it all very interesting. If you have the patience to see nature

through its cycle of the seasons, you’ll be greatly rewarded by what you

learn. If you never try, you’ll never know!"

Pasted from <https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=bsp&ver=ohhl4rw8mbn4>

And so, i set forth along with Krishna, the gardener, to take my very first steps towards a sustainable life style.

Needless to say, Krishna has more of the necessary experience and energy required for gardening. For the moment i can at best, only provide assistance by holding on to other ends of the poles, cut the wire, fetch water,tea and biscuits and in general keep him company. I have noticed, Krishna is a "people person"... he needs someone to converse with and be humoured as he works. Otherwise, he tends to sulk.

The vegetables that we have sowed so far, appear below and just in order to make this all that more interesting i am providing respective links to recipes from the konkan region. Except for the string beans, where i could not find a recipe in the site/blog named "aayi's recipes", on which i have relied for all the other recipes.

I chose the coastal/konkan region since i happen to live in Goa, which all the same, seems to be the flavour since many a season.