Prevent Garden Pests From Ruining Your Hard Work With This Natural Oil

Ongoing pest control is one of the best gardening tips for beginners, but how do you manage it? Don't pick up the pesticides just yet. There's a natural method you can use that'll banish the pests in your vegetable garden: neem oil.

Neem oil comes from Indian neem trees. It contains azadirachtin, a chemical that naturally repels insects. Neem oil can mess with their hormones as well, making it more difficult for them to reproduce and lay eggs. In fact, many commercial pesticides use neem oil as an ingredient.

Neem oil works on a wide variety of insects, like mealybugs, which feed on fruit tree leaves, and even harmful fungi, like leaf spot, which inhibit plants' ability to properly photosynthesize. Luckily, neem oil is generally harmless to helpful pollinators, like bees. That's because bugs need to eat the plant itself to be affected, and pollinators are more interested in the nectar.

To start using neem oil, you'll only need a couple of tablespoons mixed with water and a little bit of soap. Put that in a spray bottle, and mist your garden with this mixture on a biweekly basis.

While this should keep pests out of your garden, it doesn't work on all plants. Leafy greens, herbs, peppers, and peas are among the plants you shouldn't use neem oil on. You'll also need to pay attention to the weather. Applying this oil when it's especially hot or cold outside could cause the plant to have an averse reaction. Consider using it in only small amounts at first to test the plant's reaction, and do so only on full-grown plants in the evening. If applied during the daytime, neem oil heightens the risk of leaf burn.