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!

Dances With Spiders

Very unwise of the spider to parade across my family room floor the day after I posted about citrus oils repelling them...my curiosity was high-- high enough to secure the spider in a tote and see for myself. :)

*Animal activists: I had no intent on torturing him in any way.  Just wanted to REPEL him.* :)

So I put him in one side if the tote, and DoTerra Lemon Oil on the other side, just smeared it on the tote with my finger. 

I checked it about every half hour for a about six hours.  Every time he was on the opposite side of the Lemon Oil!  I even tilted it so that he would slide closer to it several times.  He always ended up on the opposite side!

Oh, and the tote smelled great. :)

So, in my little test, CITRUS OIL REALLY DOES REPEL SPIDERS.  Good to know!

Soon after that trial, I read that PEPPERMINT OIL also repels
spiders...
and mice...
and ants... (I also tried this one and rid my driveway of ants.)

So watch out spiders, the peppermint trials are next!!

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!!!!

Peppermint In My Pocket

The Story of the Day I Carried This Little Bottle With Me:

Peppermint is WAY useful!!!  Besides just smelling great and being useful in foods for flavoring, it can do A LOT of other things.  Here is the story of the day we visited a farm.

There is one week a year in the spring that I sneeze my head off due to seasonal allergies.  Sometimes I resort to  antihistamines, but usually I just suffer through because I am a mom and I am already drowsy enough, thank you very much!!  Even the ones that are not supposed to make you drowsy. ..well not so much with me.

So we were going to a farm  in this very sneezy week, so I took this little bottle of peppermint.  Why?  Because I've found that putting a little just inside my nose takes care of the itchiness and sneezing for several hours --no drowsiness!!!  I am so excited!!!!  (Since then I have decided to put a drop on a cotton ball and breathe it in through my nose,  because I believe it is the diffusion of it into my sinuses that calms my sneezing.)

USE # 1: It calms my  seasonal allergies!

Also, I woke up with a headache.  I applied some to my temples (not too close to my eyes) and across my forehead.   (In general if that doesn't stop my headache, I put a little on the back of my neck.)

USE # 2: It stopped my headache without the use of my usual pain killers!

This was more than enough to convince me that taking my peppermint to the farm was a good thing, but then another, unexpected use came up.  As we were enjoying some time that evening with some family members, my son came to me complaining of itchy legs.  (He has eczema, so his skin is frequently itchy.)  I put a little water in my hand to dilute it (it is recommended to dilute it for children and sensitive skin, but usually with a carrier oil) and put a little in the water.  I rubbed my hands together and applied it to his legs.  Within five minutes, his legs were no longer itchy.

USE # 3: It stopped the itching of my son's legs!

I LOVE MY PEPPERMINT!! 

Post post note! ;)  I now use the cotton/peppermint idea for allergies. If I breathe it in too fast, it can be irritating to the inside of the nose and sinuses, so I breathe slowly and deeply.  I've found that a few drops on cotton, even allowed to dry,  works wonders when breathing it into sinuses.  I carry my little cotton in a ziplock snack baggie in my pocket all day long and use it when needed. :)  )

YET ANOTHER POST NOTE (new year, new note!): Honestly, I felt silly breathing cotton, so now I use peppermint beadlets, which I let dissolve at the back of my throat and then breathe deeply through my nose to infuse the peppermint into my sinuses.  It works almost as well as sticking peppermint just inside my nose and breathing deeply, but I feel silly doing that, too, and then have to wash my hands...  Also, just putting peppermint into a diffuser works great!

*My reference book Modern Essentials Usage Guide cautions that peppermint possibly should be avoided with high blood pressure, and that oils containing a high proportion of phenols should be diluted and/or used only for short periods of time.

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!

Essential Oils + Culinary Endeavors = YUM!!

 My husband is a chef.  He's actually a computer administrator, but I'd give him an honorary degree for his food knowledge.  He cooks like nobody's business.  So in our house, consequently, we enjoy lots of great food, and embark on many culinary endeavors.

So imagine my *great joy* when I found out that most essential oils (I would personally only use doTERRA oils for their extensive testing to make sure the oils are all the same and absolutely pure) can be taken internally and MANY CAN BE USED IN FOOD!!

So here are some things I've tried:

WILD ORANGE FUDGE:

I added 5 drops of Wild Orange to a fudge recipe.  The result: heaven in an orange-tasting chocolate!!!!

Then I tried:

PEPPERMINT BROWNIES:

 

This was a zucchini  brownie recipe we love, and all I did was add 3 drops of peppermint to the frosting.  That was all I needed to do to turn this into a delicious peppermint treat!!

And my new:

LEMONADE RECIPE: 

 

2 CUPS COLD WATER

1/4 TEASPOON CITRIC ACID

1 TABLESPOON SUGAR

2 DROPS doTERRA LEMON OIL

The result: Yummy lemonade goodness, with all the benefits of lemon oil!!  I'd go into the benefits, but I must run for now.

PS: Citric Acid is a canning ingredient, available where canning supplies are sold. (See picture)

I have so much to share and so little time to do it!!!  The life of a mom, right?? ;)  Until next time...