Homemade Concoctions
Major ingredients in our tonics and what they contribute:
Ammonia: is a readily available source of nitrogen, which helps to encourage leafy growth. However, it's really potent stuff! To avoid burning your plants, always dilute it as specified in the tonic recipies. It can burn, too, so always handle it with gloves. Never, never combine it with vinegar or bleach! The resulting chemical reaction will release toxic fumes!
Antiseptic Mouthwash: does the same thing in your garden that it does in your mouth; destroys germs.
Baby Shampoo and Liquid Dish Soap: help soften soil and remove dust, dirt and pollution from your plants so that osmosis and photosynthesis can occur more easily. They also make plants taste bad to insects.
Beer: helps release the nutrients that are locked in the soil and helps to make your plants strong and healthy.
Cola: helps feed the good bacteria that condition your soil. be sure you use the real thing; bacteria need sugar.
Epsom Salts: deepen the color, thicken the petals and improves the root structure of your plants.
Sugar, Molasses and Corn Syrup: stimulate chlorophyll formation in plants and help feet the good soil bacteria.
Tea: contains tannic acid, which helps plants to digest their food faster and more easily.
Tobacco: poisons bugs when they ingest it or when they simply come into contact with it. It does the same to germs that cause plant diseases.
Urine: from any source; your choice, has a powerful and frightening smell that will send deer and gophers over to your neighbors!
Whiskey: or scotch or bourbon provides nutrients and is a mild disinfectant that will keep bugs away.
___________________________________________________________________
Insecticide Garlic Spray:
1 garlic head , 2 cups water: use entire head of garlic and blend with water in blender on high speed for 1-2 minutes. Pour into a nonmetal container and allow to sit at room temperature for 24 hours. Then strain mixture though cheese cloth and add an additional gallon of water. Shake to mix. Apply liberally to tops and bottoms of leaves.
Insecticide Soap Spray:
Put one tablespoon of dish detergent per gallon of water into a sprayer. Apply liberally on top and bottom of leaves. Re-apply after rain or one to two weeks.
Hot Pepper Spray: This can be used to repel, deer, rabbits and other pests from your flowers and some vegetables. Note, use caution with vegetables as a peppery taste may remain on the fruit.
Put 6 hot peppers (the hotter the better) and 2 cups of water into a blender. Blend at high speed for 1-2 minutes. Pour into a nonporous container and store at room temperature for 24 hours. Strain through a cheesecloth into a one quart container and fill container to top with water. Shake to mix. Apply liberally to plants. Re-apply every week to 2 weeks or after a rain.
Fall Tonic: 25 lb. gypsum, 10 lb. garden fertilizer(either 4-12-4 or 5-10-5), 5 lb. bonemeal. Mix all ingredients together, then apply to 100 square feet of soil with a hand held broadcast spreader. Work the tonic into the soil and then cover with a thick blanket of leaves, straw or other organic mulch.
Fall Lawn Food Mix: 50 lb. bag of lawn food (covers 2500 sq. ft.), 3 lb. epsom salts, 1 cop laundry soap. Mix all these ingredients together. Apply at half the recommended rate with a handheld broadcaster or drop spreader.
Compost Feeder Tonic: Just like your plants, your compost pile needs a boost now and then. Once a month, spray it with this tonic. 1/2 can beer, 1/2 can regular cola, 1/2 cup liquid dish soap. Mix these ingredients in the jar of your 20 gallon hose-end sprayer and apply generously.
Fungus Fighter Tonic: 1/2 cup molasses, 1/2 cup powdered milk, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1 gallon warm water. Mix the molasses, owdered milk and baking soda into a paste. Put the mixture into the toe of an old nylon stocking and let it steep in a gallon of water for several hours. Then strain and use the liquid as a fungus-fighting spray for your perennials.
Winter Sleep Tonic: 1 can beer, 1 can regular cola soda, 1 cup baby shampoo, 1/2 cup ammonia, 1/4 cup instant tea granules. Mix all these ingredients in a bucket. Pour them into your 20 gallon hose end sprayer. Saturate your mulch in your beds and spray around any shrubs and beneath trees.
Rachel Reed's Alfalfa Tea: May I share with you and your many gardening friends my recipe for "Alfalfa Tea" I use it to fertilize everything in my garden. I have wonderful results. I can water a plant with it and the next day the blooms are more intense in their color and the foliage is more healthy. The only drawback is the "barnyard odor".
32 GALLON TRASH CAN
10 CUPS ALFALFA PELLETS (obtained from feed stores)
1 CUP EPSOM SALTS
1CUP FISH EMULSION
Add the pellets to the trash can. Fill trash can with water. Stir. Cover trash can tightly with lid. For the next three days stir "tea" several times a day in order to dissolve the pellets. Keep covered. On the third day add epsom salts and fish emulsion. It is ready to use on any vegetable, plant, tree or bush. I guarantee success. You will never want to use a commercially prepared fertilizer again. At times I have been out of epsom salts and the fish emulsion and I have omitted those products and the results have been good but not as spectacular. I store the "tea" in gallon plastic containers and hide these around my garden so that I don't have to always take the "tea" from the trash can.
When all the "tea" is used, there will be enough pellet residue in the bottom of the trash can that you again fill the trash can with water and make more "tea".
Compost Tea: Compost tea is quite easy to make - almost like making a real cup of tea only on a larger scale. Shovel in some compost in an old pillow case or burlap bag. Sink it into a large bucket or barrel of water. Cover the container and just let it steep for a few days. Remember, the longer you steep the stronger it is. You may use this as a light fertilizer to give your plants a little boost. It can also be used as a foliar feeding medium.