Homemade fungus/bug spray gone bad.

shaefins · Mon Jun 28, 2010 9:10 am

I'm so mad at myself. Found a recipe online for an organic fungicide/soft insect spray. I suspected common blight on my beans and I have aphids on most plants in the garden. Spray was 1 T. oil; 2 T. baking soda; few drops of Dr. Bronner's soap; 1 qt. water. Came out the next day and *everything* has brown spots that look like a burn (except the tomatoes), and the edges of the bean leaves are all curled in.

I'm trying to console myself with the fact that the squash plants are still getting bigger (no flowers yet), the beans have flowered, the baby tomatoes still look good, and the cuke plants are rapidly outgrowing their trellis.

jal_ut · Mon Jun 28, 2010 10:03 am

Aw, too bad. I suggest that next time you come up with a formula, just try it on one plant first then wait to see if it is OK before covering everything.

I don't know what to suggest for fungal problems, we have very few of those here. A little soap in water will kill bugs though. Again, try it on one plant first to check out your concentration. Too much soap can sometimes burn plants. too. You can spray with the soap then 5 minutes later wash it off with a mild spray of the hose. Soap has no residual effect. It will kill the insects it hits immediately so it can be washed off.

Ozark Lady · Mon Jun 28, 2010 11:30 am

Milk is a great fungicide, feeds the plant with nitrogen and calcium.

Milk does cause milk spots on leaves, so dilute it, and remember to spray the ground also to get some nutrients into the ground.

Powdered milk will work of course, but raw milk will do so very much more!

garden5 · Mon Jun 28, 2010 12:16 pm

In my research for "mildew mixtures," it seems to me that I did come across a warning saying not to spray the baking soda mixture on or near beans. So, it may not be that the mixture itself is totally spoiled, just that it's no good for beans.

The milk mixture is supposed to work great as well. Just make sure to dilute it to 10% milk and not to go over 30%.

Pushindirt · Mon Jun 28, 2010 2:27 pm

I JUST ran across this here. A fungus spray.

https://www.backtocountrylife.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=783

garden5 · Tue Jun 29, 2010 9:04 am

Pushindirt wrote:I JUST ran across this here. A fungus spray.

https://www.backtocountrylife.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=783

Wow, I can't believe I never thought of that before. Garlic is a natural anti-fungal. Great idea.

Pushindirt · Thu Jul 01, 2010 12:08 pm

garden5,
I'm interested to try the garlic spray, but I don't grow garlic and am not sure I want to go through the whole process if it doesn't work. If anyone tries this will they let me know. I had a horrible time last year with bugs on my broccoli. Totally destroyed my whole crop, (ok it was only ten plants but all I had

).

dave103069 · Thu Jul 01, 2010 1:54 pm

Pushindirt wrote:garden5,
I'm interested to try the garlic spray, but I don't grow garlic and am not sure I want to go through the whole process if it doesn't work. If anyone tries this will they let me know. I had a horrible time last year with bugs on my broccoli. Totally destroyed my whole crop, (ok it was only ten plants but all I had ).

you can try this

Get a container any size, I am using a 2 qt one. Add garlic, cayenne pepper, dish soap and then add some egg shells. Fill with water and keep outside to ferment. shake and pour this into a spray bottle and at night after watering spray this around the plants and also on the leaves if you want. I normally spray around the plants but some does get on the leaves and have not had any issues with burn. Helps with deer and other critters. Although this morning the turkeys were eating around the plants so I guess it did not bother them. then again they were not eating the plants just pecking on the ground near them..