Tobacco plants contain natural pesticides.
Tobacco plants contain nicotine, not to please human smokers but to deter pests. Nicotine is toxic to some herbivorous pests, and you can make use of this quality in a homemade organic pesticide. Tobacco pesticide is particularly effective on soft creatures, such as slugs and aphids. Any tobacco forms the basis of the spray, including rolling tobacco, pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco and cigarette butts. If growing your own tobacco is not regulated in your area, drying home-grown leaves for the spray is an option.
Instructions
1. Steep a cup of dry tobacco in a gallon of water for at least half an hour. Soaking for longer produces a stronger pesticide, and some gardeners leave the tobacco mixture to soak for a day. Stronger pesticides might work faster, but they are also more dangerous to beneficial garden insects.
2. Add a squirt of dish washing liquid to the mixture. This improves the spreadability of the pesticide and is mildly toxic to some pests in its own right.
3. Strain the liquid into plastic storage containers, through a fine sieve, to remove the tobacco pieces. Tighten the lids securely. The pesticide will keep for a couple of weeks if stored somewhere cool, for example, in a garage or basement.
4. Transfer the mixture to a plant mister.
5. Target the pests and use as little spray as possible. For example, spray growing shoots that are thickly covered in aphids but not nearby, aphid-free leaves. Tobacco spray is natural but still dangerous to useful insects, such as ladybugs.
Related posts
When flowers start growing on your tobacco plant, the leaves are ready to harvest.Chewing tobacco can be expensive to buy in stores, and if you have a green thumb and some time, you may want to ex...
Nicotine is extracted from tobacco plants to make pesticide.Just because a pesticide is organic, that doesn't make it safe. Nicotine pesticides made from tobacco leaves are among the most toxic pe...
Tobacco juice is a fairly effective natural pesticide for pests on most common house plants (aside from plants in the Solanaceae family, which are related to tobacco). Easy and cheap to make, a li...
Grape insect problems are controllable without chemical pesticides.Organically grown grapes do not contain pesticide residues that may be harmful to your health. Organic pesticides for grapes incl...
Make a Tobacco Can Snowman OrnamentCigar boxes have been reused and recycled for years, why not those sturdy little smokeless tobacco cans? The size and shape make them a wonderful and free supply...
