subject: How To Make Natural Insecticides [print this page] A great deal of individuals are trying to get away from using chemicals and nowhere more so than in the use of insecticides in and around the house. The problem is that modern chemical insecticides work, are readily obtainable and are fairly cheap. The same goes for home-produced insecticides, but you have to gather the ingredients and mix them together. Some find this little bit of extra work off-putting.
Boric acid is the principal ingredient used in destroying a whole host of insects. (By the way, it is also the principal ingredient in many commercial insecticides as well, but they combine it for you and treble the price. If you do not trust me, look at the ingredients on the box).
Boric acid or borax is made from boron, one of the borates. Borax has been a known pesticide for about a hundred years. It has a variety of effects on different insects, but if an insect has mandibles or jaws, the boric acid will get inside and damage the nervous system. Some insects, like bed bugs do not have these mouth parts, so it is less successful against them, but borax will dry out an insect if it is sprinkled with the powder.
To kill any insects that love sugar, in particular ants, mix one cup of sugar into three cups of water and four teaspoons of borax. Mix them and dissolve it all completely. Get a few jam jars with lids and clean them carefully. Saturate a few cotton balls in your home-produced pesticide and put them in each jar. Then replace the tops and make a few holes in each. Put the jam jars, on their sides, in the path of any invading insects. Make sure that the holes are large enough for the insects to get through.
For cockroaches, mix borax with flour, particularly cornflour and leave about where they run or you could steep a slice of bread in borax and water for the same result.
Termites can be eradicated by adding borax powder to any non-poisonous fluid that will soak into wood, propylene glycol for instance, and really slop it on the end-grain of timbers as a preventative measure.
If you want a spray for your flowers, you could crush a load of garlic into a pint or two of paraffin; put the bits in too. Leave it stand for a day; strain it and add just as much soapy water. Mix carefully; store in glass, transferring only what you require into a spray gun as and when you need it, because it could damage some plastics.
Soapy water alone will kill aphids, just spray it on.
Another natural insecticide which will work on a great deal of garden pests is 'stinging nettle juice'. Chop down a large bunch of stinging nettles and put them in a big container of water, leave them for three or four weeks until they have stopped fermenting (no more bubbles). Take a jar full and dilute it with three of four jars of cold water, because it is too strong for many plant life. Just spray it on. Top up your fermentation bucket with fresh water and a few nettles.
