Natural Remedies For Pesky Garden Problems From Aphids To Azalea Lace Bugs To Slugs To Moles!

Natural Remedies for Pesky Garden Problems from Aphids to Azalea Lace Bugs to Moles!

Living here in Goldcrest, we are all blessed with large enough lots to indulge our green thumbs. From beautiful green lawns to yards full of flowering bushes to lush forested slopes, Goldcrest has it all!

Whether you have a yard full of rose bushes or just a couple of hanging baskets, we all want them to look their best. However, sometimes Mother Nature has other ideas - in the form of, among other things, black spot, aphids, weeds, deer, moles, slugs, and azalea lace bugs.

There are natural ways to get rid of these bothersome things, and I've tried them all! Below are my recipes.

I prefer natural remedies because I do not want to introduce poisons into my environment. Anything ending in the suffix “cide” (pesticide, herbicide, etc.) should be avoided, in my opinion. They are all toxins, and, even if they don't hurt you, they can hurt your soil or the beneficial insects or small animals that try to call your yard home. Frogs, which eat mosquitoes, absorb toxins through their skin, and pesticides and herbicides can kill them. Snakes eat rats, mice, and slugs (did you know that?), and poisoned prey can kill them. Possums also eat slugs, by the way!

PLEASE do not poison moles, or actually anything (I know rats are horrible and deserve to die), because the poison will pass from the dead animal up the food chain. Don't believe what pest control companies tell you – ANY POISON will make whatever might eat the dead animal sick and might kill it. So any hawk or owl or crow or snake or cat or dog that eats a poisoned rat, mole, mouse, etc., will get sick and might die. Birds do NOT weigh a lot and poison can REALLY harm them, and, if they feed the poisoned animal to their own babies, you've ended up killing, perhaps, a whole family of hawks or eagles or whatever. And, if your OWN pet or your neighbor's pet ingests the dead animal, it will probably end up costing a LOT of money (not to mention pain and suffering on the part of the pet and the owner)!

To kill rats, use snap traps baited with canned cat food (not peanut butter – you don't want to kill a squirrel!), and then dispose of the whole thing in the trash.

Also, with these recipes, PLEASE do not use anti-bacterial soap (never use in the garden) – it can damage beneficial bacteria in the soil and on the plants.

Now, onto HOW to do all this!

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Let's talk about black spot first. This hideous fungal disease will cause black spots (hence the name) on rose leaves, causing them to turn yellow and ultimately fall off. However, you can cure it with a simple, all-natural remedy, using something some people call the “Cornell formula,” created, ostensibly, at Cornell University. The recipe can vary, but usually consists of the following:

Natural Remedy for Black Spot

In a one-gallon sprayer add:

1 tablespoon baking soda

1/8 teaspoon Murphy's Oil Soap or Castile soap (available in some local stores or online)

1 tablespoon vegetable or horticultural oil

Fill the container with water, put the lid on, and shake it up. Apply on a dry day on the leaves, top and bottom, and repeat every two weeks as needed.

I've used it and it works.

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Aphids – horrible little bugs! You can get rid of them with ladybugs or praying mantis, but, lacking those beneficial bugs in your garden, you have to intervene. Like vampires, aphids hate garlic.

Natural Garlic Remedy for Aphids

3 – 4 garlic cloves, crushed or minced
1 pint water
1/8 teaspoon Murphy's Oil Soap or Castile soap

1 teaspoon vegetable or horticultural oil

Soak the garlic in the water overnight. The next day, strain the garlic out of the water, keeping the water. Add 1/8 teaspoon Murphy's Oil Soap or Castile soap, and 1 teaspoon vegetable or horticultural oil. Put it in a pray bottle and apply on the leaves, top and bottom, on a dry day. An added benefit MAY be that deer will avoid the plants, too.

CAUTION: This will also kill ladybugs and maybe praying mantis, so please do NOT spray on those.

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WEEDS – the bane of my existence. They pop up in my gravel driveway and pathways, and they take root in my tomato garden. I LOATHE THEM.

However, I have found a recipe that works, usually within hours. Apply it every time you see a new weed.

NATURAL WEED SPRAY

In a 1.5 (or larger) gallon sprayer, add:

1 gallon white vinegar

½ cup table salt

½ cup classic Dawn dish liquid

Put on the lid and shake vigorously. Soak the leaves of the weed on a SUNNY day. Wait for weed death in hours.

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Azalea lace bugs – these came into my life about a year ago. I had never heard of them, but I started to see the evidence of their existence in my garden. The leaves of MANY of my azaleas bushes ( I have dozens) started to look “bleached,” and close inspection of the leaves showed that there were dark, raised spots on the underside of the leaves. I called our local agricultural extension, and, several emails with photos later, I found out about azalea lace bugs! I was not happy. However, with lots of spraying, you can kill those little buggers, although the leaves will never recover, and you will still see the bleaching until the plants regrow and replace the leaves.

NATURAL AZALEA LACE BUG TREATMENT

1 tablespoon Castile soap

1 quart water

For every quart of water, add 1 tablespoon Castile soap in a sprayer, shake well, and spray, spray, spray! It's very important to get underneath the leaves, where the bugs reside.

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Slugs – when I first moved to the PacNW, I felt sorry for slugs – they're such ugly little creatures! However, those days are LONG gone! Now I kill them with...BEER!

NATURAL SLUG REMEDY

Simply bury a yogurt or sour cream container (or such) in the ground up to the lip (leave the lid on until you bury it and you won't get dirt inside) and fill ¾ way with beer. The slugs will actually crawl into the beer and drown.

There is poetic justice to that somehow.

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Deer – we are SO lucky to share our spaces with these gentle, beautiful creatures, BUT, I have to admit, sometimes they make me a little mad with their choice of cuisine. Last year, they ate my entire strawberry crop – plants and all. STILL, the deer were here before me, so I try to repel them away from the important plants – I even plants heads of lettuce along the perimeter of my garden to give them something to eat that I don't care about (I buy “living lettuce” plants from the grocery store, which are full grown and are easily planted).

There are actually a lot of ways to repel deer. They don't like Irish Spring bar soap, strangely enough, so you can suspend small pieces from some of your ultra-vulnerable plants. You could grate it onto the ground, too, but know that the soap will degrade into the soil. Tying red mylar to plants also works by supposedly mimicking flames, which make the deer think things are on fire, and they run away. I have not tried either of these things, though.

However, the following recipe has worked for me:

NATURAL DEER REPELLENT

1 gallon of water

3 tablespoons red pepper flakes

2 teaspoons liquid Castile soap

Boil the flakes in water for 15 minutes, let sit overnight, strain water into sprayer, and add the soap. Shake well and apply to the plants you want to protect. Re-apply every 3 weeks or so, especially if it has rained a lot.

This also works for rabbits, although I don't understand why you would want to repel rabbits – they're adorable!

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Moles – I understand frustration with moles. They make holes in your lawn and around your plants. Have you ever seen one, though? They are among the cutest little creatures around! I happily live with my mole population – sometimes I feel like we live together in a sitcom-worthy situation. They plow through my garden, eating bugs, and I come behind them, tamping down the surface-level tunnels they excavate around the roots of the plants. It's easy to tell where they've been – the mole hills are a sure sign, but your plants will tell you by being droopy. Simply tamp down ALL AROUND the plants with your foot and water the plant profusely (slow drip is best) for a couple days, and all should be well. Keep in mind that moles DO NOT eat plants or roots. They eat the worms and bugs that live IN the soil around the roots. If you feel that you MUST encourage the moles to move on, there are a couple of ways.

NATURAL MOLE REPELLENT

8 teaspoons castor oil

1 tablespoon Dawn classic dish soap

1 gallon water

Mix this in a bucket and pour into the exposed tunnel openings, in as many places as possible, but away from plants. Moles don't like castor oil, but beware castor oil can be poisonous to humans and pets, so use common sense.

Burying glass bottles, such as “wine cooler” or beer bottles 2/3 of the way into the ground will also keep the moles away, supposedly, because wind blows into the bottle necks and makes weird noises that moles don't like. Adding plastic windmill toys into the necks will add another irritating detail that will make the moles move, hopefully, into the greenbelt, and away from your yard! Just remember that the bottles are there before you mow or weed whack!

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Thank you so much for reading this – happy gardening!!!!!!!