The Power of Natural

Homemade Pesticides

Using chemical sprays to control pests has proven to have many seriously harmful damages on the natural environment and human health. Reversing damages to ecosystems, plant and animal species, water contamination, crop loss, and human health has cost billions.

However, there was a time when products like Roundup did not exist and people used more natural methods to control pests. Biological Control is the practice of using natural means to maintain pests and plants. There are natural ingredients that can be used as effectively as chemical pesticides but lack the harmful side affects. Using these alternatives can lower your contribution to environmental pollution and economic cost by decreasing the dependency on chemical pesticides.

 Here are a few of the many many mixes you can make to use for pest control. These options won't harm your family or pets! You can find more here

Pesticide	Ingredients	Instructions
Oil spray	Combine 1 tablespoon dish soap + 1 cup cooking oil, add 4 tsp soap and oil mix to 1 pint of water	Spray generously once every 7 days to control aphids, thrips, spider mites, and whiteflies
Baby shampoo spray	Combine 2 tablespoons baby shampoo with 1 gallon water	Spray generously and let sit for several hours before rinsing off with water. Do use the spray in the sun of on plants with hairy leaves
Garlic Spray	10-12 garlic cloves with 1 quart of water in a blender, allow to sit for 24 hours, then strain mixture through a cheesecloth into a jar and add 1 cup cooking oil. When ready to use combine ½ cup of garlic mix with 1 gallon water	Apply liberally to plants. The scent of garlic keeps many little pests away
Red pepper spray	Combine 1 tablespoon of red pepper powder, 6 drops of dish soap and 1 gallon of water. Mix thoroughly	Spray generously on plants for control of pests like leafhoppers, spittlebugs, beetles, and loopers
Salt spray	Combine 2 tablespoons salt with 1.5 gallons of warm water, allow to come to room temperature	Spray generously to control spider mites, caterpillars, cabbage worms, and chewing insects
Citrus spray	Boil 4 cups water, remove from heat, add 2 cups orange or lemon peel, let cool and strain.	Spray to repel white flies
Peppermint tea spray	Mix together 1 tablespoon peppermint essential oil with 1 quart water	Spray liberally, repels ants
Chrysanthemum flower tea	Boil 100 grams of dried chrysanthemum slower in 1 liter water for 20 minutes, strain and let cool	Spray generously. Chrysanthemum has a chemical component that attacks insect’s nervous system. Add organic neem oil for enhanced effectiveness.

Get off the Pesticide Treadmill!

Pesticides include any chemical spray designed to control "pests", including insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides. These chemicals are designed to harm and kill its target; however, they cannot distinguish between the pests and all other living organisms. Which means they harm everything in their path. Insecticides in particular are designed to attack the brain and nervous system of insects and have been found to have similar effect on humans. These chemicals are sprayed where people live, work, and play and exposure to them is inevitable. Studies show that pesticides are most dangerous when absorbed through the skin or inhaled into the lunges, as opposed to ingesting.

The way the EPA determines if a pesticide is hazardous to human health involves analyzing toxicity test results. Tests that are most often conducted on animals by the chemical manufacturer in independent laboratories. Which leaves potential for those companies to skew data or submit inaccurate data to register their products. Even if the EPA refuses to register a chemical product, the manufacturer can file a lawsuit, which is a drawn out process that keeps the product on the market in the meantime. 

Each year an estimated one billion pounds of pesticides are used on farms, forests, lawns, and gold courses. It is no surprise then that an increasing amount of plants and insects have developed resistances to these chemical sprays. In response to these resistances, companies produce stronger pesticides and farmers and lawn care workers spray more and more chemicals. That is more toxicity into the air we breathe, the water we drink, the land, grass and soil we walk on, let our kids play on and our pets roll in. 

The pesticide business is a vicious cycle that seems to have no end. The industry has you convinced that spraying endless chemicals into the environment is the road to beautiful lawns free of nature and her pests. But guess what, in the 1940s, farmers lost 7% of their crops to pests, since the 1980s farmers have lost 13% of their crops to pests. The percent of crops lost to pests has risen almost 100% even with the increased production and use of these toxic products. This pattern will not end until we all realize how detrimental and unnecessary pesticides are. Get off the pesticide treadmill!

Food for thought: It can take up to 50 months for tests on pesticides to be completed and the EPA states that pesticide safety advertising claims are a low priority. It seems clear that profit, not health, is the priority for manufacturers and the EPA is far too busy with too little power to safeguard against tricky and manipulating buzzwords like "nontoxic", "harmless", and "safe". Who watches out for yours and your family's safety and well-being? You. As a consumer, you have the responsibility to do your own research to become informed to what is really going on, it would a major mistake to believe everything advertising tells you. Do the research and decide for yourself what you believe is safe for you, your family, and the environment we live in. 

The Pesticide Action Network, is a great place to start. 

Alternative Eco-friendly Landscape Suggestions

Ecopol Project continues with it's alternative tips and suggestions for having the lawn you want without putting the environment at risk. While investigating alternative solutions I stumbled across a video in which horticulture expert Melinda Myers shares 5 easy steps that make environmental and financial sense. The five steps are:

• Be water wise
• Recycle yard waste in your landscape
• Make your own compost
• Manage pest in harmony with nature
• Energy wise landscape design

Melinda Myers goes into great detail with each step and will be sure to give any lawn care enthusiast a tip they can use to support your environment and ours a well.

If you would like to learn more about Melinda Myers check out her at: http://www.melindamyers.com/

Please take a second out of your day to take this short survey about yardcare. You might find out something about yourself or your yard that you did not previously know.

Honey, I Killed the Bees

photo credit: pixabay.com

It's becoming very well know, honey bees are an essential part of the ecosystem. Did you know your lawn care techniques could be killing them?

Dandelions are an essential food source for honey bees. Pulling this yellow weed from your lawn reduces the available nectar a honey bee can take back to its hive. Manually eliminating this weed from your lawn is one thing but who “pulls weeds” anymore when it’s so easy to drench your lawn with herbicides and pesticides?

Let’s imagine for a moment, you have just spent all day outside pulling those pesky yellow weeds. Realizing you could avoid all of that manual labor next weekend, you simply spraying the same area.

It’s time to take a break and enjoy your beautiful lawn.

You sit down and sip your refreshing honey-sweetened tea as you notice a bee find that lone dandelion you didn’t pull but made sure to spray. This bee just harvested chemical-laced nectar he will dutifully take back to his colony to convert into more honey.

How is that tea tasting now?

Interesting and Informative Article About Pesticides and Community Health

This is a brief article about the realities of pesticide use and how these chemicals damage the environment and the risks of exposure to humans.  The article also lists some solutions to the problems that we face in our communities due to rampant pesticide use and the truth about safe and legal usage.  This website, called Toxics Action Center is generally a great resource and focuses on the pursuit of clean air, clean water and sustainability in our communities.  Check out the article "The Problems With Pesticides" here.

Baby Steps Toward Going Organic

As your standard broke college kid, when I go to the grocery store I avoid the word “organic” like the plague. Why? Because to me, organic means expensive. I was raised in a low-income family that taught me to save every penny. I act this way in terms of clothing, food, and gasoline. So today, as I walked through the produce section of the nearest grocery store, I decided that I would rather spend $1.99 on a bag of generic, inorganic baby carrots instead of a $2.29 for the same sized bag filled with organic carrots. 30 pennies were the deciding factor for me.

Ironically, I was snacking on these carrots while researching topics for this soil contamination blog. I felt a twinge of guilt when I came across articles citing chemical pesticides as a contributor of soil contamination. Arguably the most important part of eating organic food is that it is not treated with chemicals and pesticides. Most of the discussion on organic food concerns putting these chemicals into our bodies, but it’s also important to consider that they are seeping into the earth.

http://water.usgs.gov/edu/graphics/gwflowlagtimetowell.gif

When a pesticide does get into our soil, it has the potential to contaminate groundwater. As a freshwater source, we then have to consider that our choice in eating nonorganic food still put these potentially harmful products into the bodies of those around us. U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) tells us that “this especially concerns people living in the agricultural areas where pesticides are most often used, as about 95 percent of that population relies upon groundwater for drinking water.” Another interesting fact is that these pesticides “may take decades to become apparent in groundwater.” Not only is this affecting those around you, but it can affect future generations.

To be fair, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and USGS both note that you generally have to consume a large amount of pesticides in order for them to be significantly harmful. When the chemicals do take effect, however, the EPA says this about pesticides in the human body: “The health effects of pesticides depend on the type of pesticide. Some, such as the organophosphates and carbamates, affect the nervous system. Others may irritate the skin or eyes. Some pesticides may be carcinogens. Others may affect the hormone or endocrine system in the body." To me, that seems pretty substantial, but I still wasn’t fully convinced it was worth the cost.

I decided to look up ways to make eating organic affordable. After all, these healthier, environmentally friendly veggies can cost 40-50% more. One site specifically told me that “the best foods to buy organic are apples, bell peppers, carrots, celery and strawberries” while some others, such as seasonal options, are not as harmful to consume. To check out some more helpful tips, here is the link to the article.

This discovery probably won’t make me throw away my bag of baby carrots, or convince me to spend double the money when I go grocery shopping, but it does give me a third factor to consider when I’m filling up the shopping cart. Instead of just comparing cost and quality, I now have to consider my morals because my decision effects more than just my bank account. 

Sources:

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2013/08/organic-vs-non-organic-whats-the-difference/#.VQDfFfnF-So

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/JustOneThing/organic-nonorganic-buy/story?id=13310727

http://water.usgs.gov/edu/pesticidesgw.html

Added by: Erin Kashuba