Catalan Gardener

Homemade Nicotine Insecticide Spray

With the economic climate and a move towards people creating things for themselves more and more, there is a growing interest in making your own garden products: pesticides, fertilizers and equipment.  One of the simplest ways to start with this 'make it yourself' mentality is by creating some simple garden pesticides at home.

There are many recipes for homemade garden pesticides.  Most will work out much cheaper than buying an equivalent product and many will be more effective.  A lot of them will increase your green credentials as you can recycle waste products at home, turning them into useful garden products.  Many of the homemade recipes will allow for safer pet-friendly gardening too.

For this recipe though we're taking a tougher approach.  Sometimes (not often) insect infestations can be so bad that truly environmentally products like soap spray just will not eradicate the problem.  At times like that its time to call on homemade nicotine spray.

We all know smoking is bad for us but did you know its also bad for garden insect pests?  Serious infestations of many garden nasties can be eradicated by making your own homemade nicotine spray.  It is very simple to create and safer than many of the store bought alternatives.

You will need to be a smoker or know one to provide the raw materials for this concoction.

• Collect 100 cigarette butts.
• Boil the 100 cigarette butts in around four litres of water.
• Cool, then strain the mixture well.
• Decant to a large marked bottle and store out of reach of children and animals.  Remember nicotine is a poison so this homemade nicotine spray should be treated with care.
• Dilute the mixture with two parts water and put into a cheap plastic plant spray bottle.
• You can now spray this diluted mixture onto any plants which are infested with leaf miners, caterpillars and weevils.

This mixture is very strong and should only be used with caution and if a serious pest infestation has occurred.  The nicotine is dangerous for helpful predator insects too so use sparingly or future infestations could be worse than ever!

Never use near plants of the potato/tomato family as they are so closely related to tobacco you could pass on virus diseases to them.

There are lots more sprays you can produce at home. A homemade soap debug spray is an efficient way to control insects and prevent serious infestations.

Once you start making your own garden pesticides, perhaps you'd like to move on to making your own fertilisers. A manure tea fertiliser is simple to make and very effective in boosting plants' performance. It is very useful as a tonic for plants that have suffered disease or insect attack.

We have lots more tips for organic gardening on the cheap.

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