How to Make Homemade Plant Fertilizers and Pesticides | Do it Yourself ¦ Zahida Ashref

The gardening experience puts forth many challenges - pests and soil exhaustion, among other things. Let's see how you can tackle these problems without even losing anything out of your pocket, with things that lay around in your very own home.

Not many of us know which chemicals from the store would work for our plant's special needs. The following remedies are organic and homemade, so it is safe and affordable.

Pesticides

It's hurting to see the fruit of all your hard work be annihilated so effortlessly by pests. 

Pests like caterpillars, grasshoppers, cutworms, moth larvae hide under the soil and attack the plants during night. 

Pests such as aphids, slugs & snails, flea beatles which eats succulent plants & leaves, mealy bugs and powder mildew are some other enemies of your precious plants.

Sometimes, chemical pesticides might harm the plant because the substances in the pesticide might not necessarily be any less harmful to the plant than it is to the pest itself. 

During rainy season mice attack the roots of plants.

Here are a few homemade, purely organic pesticides with things you have in your pantry:

1. Garlic Pepper Spray 

What you need:

Garlic bulbs

Green chilli

Procedure:

Blend 2 pods of a garlic bulb and a handful of green chillis and 2 cups of water until smooth in the blender. 

Filter it and store in a bottle. Add 1/4 cup of blended mixture to 1 litre water and spray onto plants.

Why this ingredient?

Garlic deters many pests, such as aphids, spider mites, fungus gnats, Japanese beetles, snails, and cabbage loopers. Garlic also accumulates sulfur, which is a naturally-occurring fungicide that will help protect your plants from diseases.

2. Chilli Spray

What you need:

Chilli powder

Liquid soap

Small onion

Procedure:

Add 2 teaspoons chilli powder to 1 litre of water.

Then add 3 to 4 drops of liquid soap & grind one small onion and combine. Filter it and it's ready to be filled into a spray bottle.

Tip: Its better to use this chilli spray to the soil around the plants than using on the foliage of the plants.

It can be sprayed on the leaves of hardy and sturdier plants.

Why this ingredient?

Chillies contain a compound called Capsaicin which is responsible for the heat we feel when we eat them.The capsaicin deters caterpillars and maggots from plants that have been treated.

3. Neem oil spray

What you need:

Cold pressed organic neem oil

Organic liquid soap

Baking soda

Procedure:

To make the spray, mix 2 tablespoons neem oil, 1 tablespoon organic liquid soap and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda. 

Dilute the mixture with 1 litre warm water. After cooling, pour into the spray bottle and it's ready to use.

Why this ingredient?

Neem oil kills some pests after they have eaten leaves sprayed with it, while it repels others with its strong smell. Neem oil is used to control many pests, including whitefly, aphids, Japanese beetles, moth larvae, scale, and spider mites

Fertilizers

The soil cannot sustain the plants for too long. Once the soil is exhausted, it can adversely affect the plant due to deficiency in nutrients. 

This is a problem that you cannot avoid completely if you don't have soil testing kits, unless, the plant shows any signs of exhausted soil.

But not to worry because the plant shows symptoms such as pale yellow or brown leaves or discoloration of some sort to alert you that it is time to feed its soil.

Below are some homemade fertilizers that you should probably start using for your plants:

1. Banana Peel Slurry

What you need:

Banana peel

Egg shells
Garlic peel
Onion peel

Procedure:

Collect one week-old banana peel, egg shell, garlic peel, onion peel and blend it together. 

Mix it in one bucket of water and use for plants weekly once. 

This is a wonderful pot of goodness especially for flowering plants and vegetables.

Why these ingredients?

Banana peels add potassium as well as small amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and magnesium to the soil.

Onion skins is a potassium-rich fertilizer for all your plants growing indoors or outdoors. Using it will increase their disease resistance, growth, strong stems, and productivity.

Ground eggshells provide your plants with calcium, essential for building the cell walls of a plant.

2. Dilute Fermented Coconut Water

What you need:

Coconut water

Procedure:

Ferment coconut water for two whole days.

For every one part coconut water, add five parts water and mix.

Spray this solution onto Orchids weekly once.

Why this ingredient?

Coconut water helps instigate frequent flowering and root development. It will also help your plant grow faster and more vigorously. It is a great source of calcium, magnesium, and other minerals.

3. Compost

The simplest fertilizer you can make for your plants is compost. It is as easy as letting your kitchen waste lie in wet soil and then all you have to do is wait for it to decompose.

Compost is rich in minerals like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

Conclusion: A Word from the Co-Author

Zahida Ashref is a passionate gardener who is here with us to share her homemade DIY plant fertilizers and pesticides, from her vast experience maintaining an unthinkable number and variety of plants, and a most breathtaking garden:

Most of the people would like to have a beautiful garden in their home. 

However many of them would not have the time, patience or the know-how of maintaining a good garden. 

People entrust someone to take care of their garden, who will maintain it according to their whims and fancies. Those who have ample money, engage some landscaping specialists. 

But none of this will give enough satisfaction for a real enthusiast with a passion for gardening - to watch the plants that we grow and to see them blossom is a real pleasure to the eyes and heart. 

For being a good gardener, you need to have a plan, enough time, basic knowledge about plants, which needs to be updated on a regular basis, the willingness to innovate newer methods of planting, and above all, a heart to sit and enjoy the fruits of your labor.