Natural Pest Control: A Safe Alternative to Garden Pesticides
Using essential oils to protect your plants from insects
Adapted from an article by Jean Marie Friedmann, in Grade-A-Notes.
Used by permission.
Although very common in America today, the use of pesticides is a very bad idea.
- The average American carries at least 13 different pesticides in his/her body, and these pesticides have been associated with many serious health conditions, such as birth defects and cancer. (see Dangerous Pesticides In Your Body for more details). They also mimick sex hormones in the body and can lead to things like infertility, endometriosis and menstrual cycle problems in women, and impotence and other hormonal problems in men.
- Research demonstrates that exposure to insecticides causes a cascade of damage targeting brain pathways involved in Parkinson's Disease. (See more on this at Pesticides and Parkinson's Disease.)
We really need a safer alternative; and we have it with therapeutic-grade essential oils.
Simple and safe ways to get rid of those bugs
For plants infested with insects, simply fill a mist spray bottle with 4 oz of water and add one of the following essential oils.
Finally, A Good Use for NutraSweet …
Dr. Mercola posted an article on his website called, "Got an Ant Problem? Use Aspartame". His basic conclusion is that aspartame is a better — and far safer — alternative for pest control than the average toxic pesticides found at your neighborhood hardware store. Here's the story …
About two years ago, a health-conscious consumer with an ant problem emptied one packet of aspartame into the corner of each of her bathrooms. The "sweet" solution worked brilliantly, as she's seen no signs of carpenter ants crawling around for the past year. It worked on fire ants (impervious to many poisons) too, but required moistening of the aspartame before the ants went for it.
Dr. Mercola said that it's no mystery that aspartame would work like a pesticide, since the asparctic acid contained in this toxic product is a well-documented excitotoxin. It causes specific brain cells to become so excessively excited that they quickly die, just as with both kinds of ants.
Makes you wonder, he said, if the ideal purpose of aspartame may not be as a sweetener — since it can cause all sorts of problems, up to and including cancer — but as a poison.
Finally, a worthwhile use for NutraSweet . . . .
- Spearmint: ants, aphids, caterpillars, black flea beetle, gnats, lice, moths and plant lice.
- Peppermint: ants, aphids, bean beetle, cabbage root fly, caterpillars, black flee beetle, flies, lice, moths and plant lice.
- Lemongrass: black flea beetle, fleas, mosquitoes and ticks.
- Tansy: black fly, carrot fly, fleas, flies, greenfly, mosquitoes and white fly.
- Hyssop: aphids, cabbage root fly, moths and slugs.
- Thyme: bean beetle, cabbage root fly, cutworm and ticks.
- Sage: cabbage root fly, cutworm, nematodes, ticks and white fly.
- Rosemary: cabbage root fly and carrot fly.
- Patchouli: gnats, snails, weevils, and woolly aphids.
- Pine: slugs, snails and wooly aphids.
- Sandalwood: weevils and wooly aphids.
Give the bottle a vigorous shake, to disperse the oil in the water, and mist the infested plant. Use as little as possible. Several applications, a few days apart, may be necessary.
Another great alternative is the cleansing blend. It will not only help keep the bugs away; and, when applied to a bite or sting, will neutralize the venom. (Melaleuca oil is another good remedy for stings.) We have applied a drop of this blend to wasp, bee and yellow jacket stings and, by the next day, there were no traces of a sting. It works well for mosquito bites too.
Farm-sized use of essential oils
The largest producer of organically-grown, therapeutic-grade essential oils in American — and possibly the world — with over 2,000 acres under cultivation, never uses pesticides, herbicides, fungicides or other chemicals on any of its fields. Instead, it uses a blend of essential oils, including pine and cinnamon.
If essential oils can be used on an operation this size, there is no question they will work for you.
