Essential oils play a big role in organic gardening. Various types of oils help to repel insects and kill invasive weeds that try to overtake the edible parts of the garden. Keep your home garden growing abundantly without chemicals with these tips for gardening with essential oils.
How to Mix and Use
When using essentials oil to keep pests out of the garden, mix a few drops of the oil in a spray bottle filled with water, then spray on all the plants. The oils are natural and won’t harm the plants or the humans doing the spraying. Can you say that about Round-Up???
Make spraying for pests or weeds the last thing you do after working in the garden so it will have time to settle on the plants and soil.
Insect Repelling Oils
* Garlic oil is very pungent and works well at repelling several pests, including mosquitoes and cats.
* Lemongrass, citronella, eucalyptus and cajeput essentials oils are very effective for garden use. All repel a variety of flying and crawling pests without harming vegetation.
* Peppermint essential oil repels ants, lice, spiders and fleas. If you own pets, it’s a great to use on the lawn to keep the flea population at bay. Soak cotton balls with non-diluted peppermint oil and tuck around the perimeter of your garden to keep rats and squirrels from eating your vegetables.
* Pine oil repels fleas, ticks, slugs and snails. Good to use in the garden and landscape when you have children and/or pets.
Thieves Oil Pesticide – Thieves oil has clove, lemon, cinnamon, eucalyptus, and rosemary. In a standard size spray bottle, fill almost full of water and then add enough Thieves Cleaner to color the water.
* Rosemary essential oil is a natural mosquito and cat repellent. To keep cats from using your garden as their own personal bathroom, try this trick. Spray small strips of cloth with rosemary oil water and hang the strips up around the perimeter of your garden. Cats hate the smell of rosemary and will stay away – so will the mosquitos. Re-wet cloth strips weekly or after a rain.
* Tea tree, lavender and clove essential oils are good all-around insect repellents.
Fungus Killer
Moss and other types of fungus grow on garden soil and deplete nutrients before plants can uptake them. Kill the fungus with these anti-fungal essential oils. Add 10 drops of the essential oil of your choice to a spray bottle, then spray the soil thoroughly.
* Cinnamon, clove, peppermint, onion, garlic, rosemary, thyme, tea tree or oregano.
* Neem oil will rid the garden of nematodes which live in the soil and attack plant roots.
Attract Pollinators
Essential oils can be used not only to repel the bad guys, but attract the good guys too. Attract natural pollinators to your garden with orange blossom, sage, yarrow, lavender, catmint and fennel essential oils mixed and used the same ways as the repellents.
As always my fave oils are Young Living oils. Not only do they produce the highest quality oils out there…they use essential oils for all pest and weed control on their farms. Pretty nifty!
Wow! I’ve seen a lot of uses for essential oils, but I’ve never heard of using them like this before. This is very interesting.
I had no idea you could use oils in the garden. I like the idea of attracting pollinators.
I was so pleased when I visited our local farm that so much can be done naturally. I hadn’t considered essential oils and their uses in the garden.
These are great tips! I didn’t realize essentials oils help!
Thanks for the tips! Just came across your blog and love it!
Who knew!! I certainly did not. Pinning so that I can refer back to this for my garden. Thanks for the great information.
>> The oils are natural and won’t harm the plants or the humans doing
>> the spraying.
Not necessarily true. Natural doesn’t mean safe. I tried out using some oregano oil at full strength to kill mealy bugs on avocado tree a few years old. I dropped a few drops down the stem of the tree over the bugs just to see what would happen. At the same time, I rubbed some oil over some of the leaves. The next day the stem of the avocado plant where the oil touched was dark brown and all the leaves on the plant where oil touched were dead. All the leaves on the plant above where the oil touched were and have been drooping for days. I pretty much killed this avocado tree. Who knew oregano oil could be that powerful? Yes, I used it at full strength which is probably why it was so harsh, but again, just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s safe.
Oregano oil is one of the strongest oils. Yes it may be because you used it full strength. I always dilute all my essential oils. Thanks for the blog it may save another Avocado Tree.
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I don’t see where it is recommended to use EO full strength. I always dilute. I learned from your experiment though. Thank you.
Is geranium oil good for protecting plants from insects? I have a bottle I do not like the smell and want to use it. any other uses that I do not have to use personally.