Hello Lovelies,

Worms, pets, gnats, you name it, are quite bothersome and most annoying in a home garden.  After all, it takes effort and planning to garden and is not an easy feat to get rid of what ails it. Pests come and go and there is every chemical on the market to get rid of them.  What is hard to comprehend, is why put a chemical on your garden when if you are like me, your garden is organic and made with homemade compost.  It defeats the purpose.

Most recently, it was discovered that cabbage worms have made their beds among the baby brussel sprout plants.  Here is how to make your own inexpensive “Worm Spray”.

You will need:

• Small plastic spray bottle (what is shown is travel size)
• Fish Oil Capsules
• A pin to pierce the capsules
• Garlic Water/Juice
• Water

Take an empty spray bottle and fill 3/4 with water.

With a teaspoon, measure two teaspoons of juice or water from your minced garlic jar. To make a homemade version if you don’t buy jarred garlic, mince a clove of garlic and add water letting it infuse in the fridge for a few days.  That garlic acts as a deterant for the butterfly so they don’t land on the leaves to lay eggs.  Pierce a few fish oil capsules and empty in the bottle. I would highly recommend wearing gloves for this because the fish oil smell lingers on the skin. Yuk! Two liberal applications emptied the spray bottle so there is no waste depending on the size of the area you are spraying.  I had just four plants.

Shake and spray!  It is that easy.  It smelled like fish, but was very effective.  It took about two applications within a week avoiding watering the leaves, but rather let the water run near the stem to not wash off the mixture.  It has been about two weeks and the plants show no signs of new eggs or new worms.  I’m not sure if this remedy will work on all plants.  But for brussel sprouts it worked like a charm.  Cabbage worms seem to love really green veggies like broccoli, cabbage, and brussel sprouts.  Best part is most people already have the ingredients in their home making it a very affordable option.

Total cost for this little project was .50 for the travel size spray bottle.

Happy Thursday!