Essential Oils in the Garden: Summary of My First Year

SO EXCITED!!!!!!  I was looking for a natural solution for my garden problems when I found essential oils!  And they greatly reduced my garden problems!!  I promised to post my discoveries, so here they are:

PEPPERMINT: General spray for pests in the garden at 18 drops of peppermint to 8 oz. water in a spray bottle (see last year's post), but I never did incorporate the two drops white fir like in my video write up.  I plan to include it in my spray this year.  But it did reduce pests, and at one point I had a lot of spiders in my garden, and it decreased them, too.  It chased ants away from anywhere I didn't want them, and...

MOST EXCITING!!!

I didn't have even one vole in my garden last year!!  (For those not familiar, voles are like gophers)  The year before, voles ate my best tomatoes and peas.  They would burrow up under my plants and feast on my best produce...the food I planted for my family...rodents eating MY food!!  GROSS!!  They also killed my young apple tree in the course of several years by burrowing up beside the trunk and eating the trunk by the ground.  But not this year!!!! =)  So my approach with peppermint to treat voles in the garden (becuase I still have them in my yard, they just don't go into my garden) is to water with furrows, and about once a week add a drop or two of peppermint from my doTERRA bottle in the pooling water in each furrow.  If I saw a vole hole near my garden (which I did) I would run water straight down the hole and put six drops of peppermint in the running water.  LIKE VOLE DISAPPEARING MAGIC!!

I had concerns that maybe spraying peppermint might deter bees from pollinating.  So I did an experiment where I found a group of flowers that bees of all kinds just loved!  I sprayed it on the flowers (not on the bees because that's just mean, and possibly dangerous!!) ;)  Within 15 minutes, bees returned joyfully to the flowers.

I did also spray my peach tree with peppermint.  The video I watched said that it would reduce but not entirely kill off pests on fruit, but that it was better to cut around a few worms than put poison on your trees.  My peaches did indeed have fewer worms last year!  So I did further experimenting.  I found a worm, and put a big juicy peach by it that I had sprayed the with the peppermint spray and observed for several hours.  The worm never once crawled on the peach.  SUCCESS!!

I don't know what oils might help deter birds from eating peaches, but if you do, please leave a comment!!  But I tried this approach last year.  Netting I bought from the fabric section secured by clothes pins.  It think it worked pretty well.  Which has nothing to do with oils, but I thought I'd share. =)

ON GUARD:  My referenced video said that if peppermint didn't work, to use other oils in other sprays, including On Guard.  So I did several times, with some success.

LAVENDER:  Worked great for aphids on my apple trees!

Well that's all I remember; maybe I should have taken notes as I went, but I was too busy gardening!! (My happy place.)

Here are some things I have yet to find a natural solution for: 

earwigs

snails (although I think peppermint helped a bit)  If you have ideas for these, please leave a comment!!

DOTERRA INTERNATIONAL ON FACEBOOK POSTED THIS

this year: Keep your garden pest-free with essential oils! Try mixing 8 ounces of water in a spray bottle with ½ teaspoon natural soap and 12 drops of dōTERRA essential oil. Remember to shake the bottle frequently to keep the oil mixed with the water. 

AND A CHART WITH THIS INFO: 

ants: peppermint

beetles: peppermint, thyme

chiggers: geranium, lemongrass, thyme

cutworm: thyme

flies: clove, geranium, peppermint, rosemary

mosquitoes: geranium, lemongrass

moths: peppermint, geranium

slugs: cedarwood

spiders: peppermint

ticks: geranium, thyme, lemongrass

weevil: cedarwood 

Until next time, I wish you successful gardens!!

Glass vs. Aluminum

     I always use glass bottles when mixing essential oils with water because (even when adding edible oils to my drinking water) because I have been told that oils adhere to and break down plastic.  (And they cling to Styrofoam and dissolve it because, I've been informed, oils cling to and try to eliminate synthetics--which is handy if you happen to have any synthetic substances in your body.)  

     So I make this great spray that I use for everything!  

General Cleaner: An 8 ounce glass spray bottle filled with water and 8 drops of On Guard.  

That's it, and I used it for tables, counter tops, cleaning hands (like sanitizer) and fruit and veggies (rub around and rinse), because it supposedly kills everything: bacteria, viruses, molds... and I believe it because I'm convinced that On Guard oil blend has stopped or reduced every cold that I've had for over a year.  

     I also heard that aluminum is good to use when adding essential oils.  So I bought some metal (I assumed aluminum but it didn't say anywhere on it what it was) and made some of the above spray to do some bathroom cleaning.  I doubled the strength, adding 16 drops of On Guard, and within one day, it didn't smell quite like On Guard anymore.  It still had some On Guard qualities to it, but it lacked, as far as I could tell, a cinnamon smell that is in On Guard.  So I smelled both, and even tasted both, and I'd say there was a definite difference in the metal container.

     My conclusion is that the metal interacted with the oils somehow, changing them.  It's never happened to me with glass before.  So from now on I will only use glass.  Anyone else have some insights on this subject?

Later note: I was told at a conference by another attendee that stainless steel also does not interact.  I'll have to try it!!