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!!

Delicious Cream Cheese Mints, Any Flavor!

Love this recipe from a friend! Easy and wonderful, and stores well frozen. 

Cream Cheese Mints

1 - 8 oz pkg Cream Cheese
1 - 2lb bag of Powdered Sugar
¼ C Butter
Flavoring (EO’s) and Food coloring

(Make sure your essential oil flavor is one that can be taken internally. If it is DoTerra brand, it will tell you if you can take it internally right on the bottle.)

1. Melt butter and cream cheese in a saucepan over low. When combined, stir in powdered sugar. You might not need ALL of the sugar, but most of it.
2. Divide the mixture into however many flavors you want.
*When using Essential Oils start out with one drop and taste it. It can get too strong very quickly.
3. Add the flavor and coloring and mix. Roll into quarter sized balls and then press down with a fork.
4. Let rest for a few hours or overnight uncovered.

**Pictured is Wild Orange with orange food coloring.  I used 5 drops of Wild Orange, and they were a little strong.  When I made Peppermint (colored them blue), I flavored the whole batch with 2 drops of Peppermint, and it was perfect! (EO's vary one from the other as well--some taste stronger.)

I have also eaten Lemon and Lavender mints, and they were fabulous!! 

Enjoy!

Lavender For Burns

Silly me, for two reasons: First for touching a hot pan, and second, for not taking a before picture. =)  This is the after.

 I was camping Saturday (two days ago) and grabbed a hot handle on a pan while serving hash browns.  Immediately I could see white ridges on the lines on my fingers and knew it was a bad burn.

What did I do?  I instinctively ran for the water and ran it over my fingers. Then I remembered: "Oh yeah, I have lavender in my tent!"  and ran for my tent.  I put several drops on the affected fingers (three of them) and let it soak in.

For the next two or so hours I soaked it in ice water, and put on lavender about four more times and went back to the ice water because when I took it out of the ice water, it was burning again.

Saturday and yesterday I had blisters.  The biggest blister was on the the middle finger (on the left in the picture).  It was raised about an eighth of an inch, and was about a half inch across (almost round) and the blisters were tender to the touch.  They remained yesterday, but became less tender.

This morning: this!  The picture above, and no tenderness.  I was so excited I decided to blog about it!! =) In fact, I dug with a shovel in my yard for 45 minutes without discomfort!!  (At least not from the burns, haha!)

So that is my experience.  

I so love lavender for burns!!!

I

Acne and Oils

A recent experience we had with oils was  with acne with a young friend.  Again, we looked up in a guide what might work for acne.  We used all three recommended oils in a roller bottle with water.

Recommended in my A-Z guide were Melaleuca, Lavender, and Lemon grass.  I put 5 drops of each in the roller bottle with water.  It was a little strong, so we decided in the future to use much less lemon grass, or remove lemon grass all together.

My young subject was instantly very excited when it was realized that the pores were smaller immediately after application!

It was used it for 5 days two or three times daily for this experiment, and here are the before and after pictures:

We are extremely encouraged with the results!!  We will continue use!!

Itchy legs!!!

My husband and I have a weird thing happen sometimes--our shins itch for a few days at the same time.  Apparently allergy related, this happened a few weeks ago.  So I looked up in my little guide what is good for itchiness.  Listed were PEPPERMINT OIL and LAVENDER OIL.

So that night I tried both.  I rubbed lavender on my right let and peppermint on the left.  The lavender seemed to work faster, but within 5 minutes both had worked.    

It worked!  Hopefully I won't have itchy legs very often,  but when I do, I know how to fix it!