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Garlic for Pest Control- It’s not just for vampires!
By admin | Nov 16, 2008
Organic Pest Control | 1 Comment

Garlic is an amazing vegetable. Can you imagine cooking without garlic? Would anything be worth eating? Garlic’s unique flavor is a must in countless dishes throughout the culinary spectrum (Except in cakes. That would be nasty).

Garlic’s myriad of health benefits also make it a popular dietary supplement. But did you know it can also be used in the garden?

Garlic is a mild, but effective, pest deterrent (it’s a people deterrent too, if you eat it raw) and also has fungicidal properties. A garlic spray can be bought made easily at home.

The problem with garlic spray is, while being natural and organic, it isn’t as powerful as the likes of rotenone or pyrethrum. Both of which are used more widely used in large scale organic agriculture.

This really isn’t much of a problem, though, as rotenone and pyrethrum are non-selective and can be very damaging to beneficial insects. Garlic is also non-selective, but it’s lack of strength won’t totally obliterate your garden life. Nor, however, will it faze an infestation of most major garden pests.

Which brings us to the use for which garlic really shines- as a preventative spray. Spraying garlic every ten days or so on crops that you have historically had pest problems with can be very helpful as a part of your IPM (integrated pest management- more on that another day) program. Then, if all else fails, you can bring in the big guns like rotenone.

The same goes for plants that you have had fungus problems with in the past. I have problems with wilt in young pepper plants, for instance. Spraying the leaves and soaking the soil with garlic spray before the problem shows up can be helpful.

Don’t go crazy and spray your whole garden. Focus on crops that you have trouble with or think you may have trouble with. If you never have any pests attack your cucumbers, for instance, then don’t use a preventative spray on them. Frequent garlic spraying of your entire garden can have bad ecological effects. As with all pest control solutions, organic or not, use with caution.

A few tips-

* As with all foliar applications, don’t spray right before rain or during the heat of the day. Or else your hard work will evaporate or wash away.
* Don’t spray garlic right before harvest! This should be obvious, but give your plants at least a couple of weeks before harvest with no spraying. Unless you like garlic flavored lettuce.
* Don’t spray on plants that are already diseased or dying. That’s akin to shooting a rhino with a BB gun.
* You may want to think twice about showing visitors around your garden immediately after spraying…
*

MOST IMPORTANT- As with all pest control measures, keep a careful eye on your garden after spraying. If you notice ladybugs and bees are disappearing, or anything else unusual is going on- STOP!