There are times when it just seems that there are much more insects than ever before. Maybe it is the milder winters and wetter summers allowing them to breed more easily, or maybe it is because not so many people are using insecticides in their gardens.
It is fairly understandable that a lot of people do not want to use chemicals on their gardens, but not using anything at all results in a growth in the insect numbers.
Over the last fifty or more years, people had grown more and more used to using chemical insecticides to kill house and backyard insect pests because they are a quicker and definite killer.
So what do you do if you want to manage the number of backyard insect pests, but do not like to spread chemicals?
Well, you would have to go back to using natural insect pest killers, although most families have forgotten what their great-grandparents used to use to eradicate bugs. The following is a list of a few of the natural ways of killing insect pests. However, not all techniques or plants will be available in all countries.
Stinging nettles: if you cut down a bunch of stinging nettles and immerse them in water for a week or more, chemicals will come out of the plants into the water. Strain the water off and spray it onto your plants. It will kill or put off a great deal of garden insects. You can also use it as a plant food, but you will have to be careful how strong it is.
Rotenone: is a natural insecticidal. It is made from the roots of the derris plant. It kills by damaging the stomachs of insects. However, it is rather slow-acting and needs to be reapplied often in order to obtain the utmost impact. Do not use it near fish though.
Washing Up Water: soapy water of any sort will kill green fly along with other backyard insect pests. This is a very simple control to administer. Simply strain your soapy water into a spray gun (like an empty window cleaner spray gun) and blast your greenfly.
Corn meal: you can sprinkle this around plants or skirting boards to kill insects. If a tomato hornworm or a cockroach eats some, the corn meal| will swell up in the insect’s stomach with the bodily fluids in there and the insect will eventually pop.
Pyrethrum: made from geraniums: will paralyze an insect, but it will also wear off, so it is often mixed with a poison to kill the insect off. Otherwise, you can pick them up.
A mixture of cow’s milk, flour and water can be used as a natural insecticide, funnily enough. It is very efficient at killing the eggs of insects. It also destroys insects themselves by blocking their breathing holes. In other words, they asphyxiate.
Neem is a very widespread tree in India and has medicinal as well as insecticidal applications. This natural insecticide deters insects by means of an active constituent that mimics an insect hormone. It makes it difficult, if not impossible, to digest food and it blocks their cycle of reproduction. It works most effectively of all on insects that mainly consume leaves.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on several subjects, but is at present involved with Insect Exterminator problems. If you would like to know more, visit our website at Bugs Infestation.
