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!!

Essential Oils in Gardening

Gardening--it calls to my heart more each year.   But I don't want to use poisons on it, and that used to mean that my garden didn't do very well.  But I've gone organic, and it's doing better, and this year I discovered in a video that

Peppermint 

can  be a huge help in the garden!!  I'm so excited, and have already  begun to try it  as I've planted my tomatoes.

I saw the video on DoTERRA Pro but didn't see any links to post it on my blog or face book page, so I will do a write-up here. 

Video Write-up: 

In the video a lady named Connie Boucher, who is an expert at using essential oils in the garden, gives advise on gardening.  She had been gardening with essential oils for 18 or 19 years.  Here are some main ideas in the video:

• Peppermint  in water in a spray bottle will  take care of a large percentage of garden pests, misting the plants lightly.
•  DoTERRA is the brand of Essential Oils she uses now, because, while other brands worked, she found that they left a "sticky, filmy residue; with DoTERRA I don't have that."
• A good "General Good For Everything Spray" is 
•  8 oz. spray  bottle with water
• 18 drops of peppermint
• 2 drops of white fir   
• Use more or less oils as needed  

•  She starts  by spraying essential oils in the hole or furrow where she is planting.  Then she sprays the actual plant.
• An interviewer commented that she personally used one drop of oil per one ounce of water as a general rule.
• As a general rule, she uses Peppermint first; if that doesn't do it she uses thyme (in a different spray  bottle); if that doesn't do it, she will try cinnamon, clove, cassia, or On Guard.
• You can also mist your fruit trees, but not with the expectation that it will kill all the worms.  Oils will cut back a large number of worms, but she said that worms are a natural thing, and you can cut around them--it's 'better than  putting poisons on your tree.'
• When she cuts off a branch, she sprays the cut part with oils.
• Connie Boucher sends her grandkids out with a peppermint spray bottle to spray ants, with no fear of poisoning.

I am so excited to use essential oils in my garden this year, and I'm sure I will share the results with you!!!!