Garlic Spray Recipie, Other

I have come across a great little recipe using Garlic. It's organic and I thought I'd reproduce it and post on my blog. This spray will last for between 24 to 72 hours but variable to the local temperature, moisture and available sunlight. It's source is from the Gardening Australia Website and CREDIT to them.

Garlic spray recipe
To make a large quantity of garlic spray, follow this recipe:

500g crushed garlic
150-200mls liquid paraffin (just enough to cover garlic)
2.5L water
150g pure soap

• Soak the garlic and paraffin together for 24-48 hours
• Add remaining ingredients and stir thoroughly
• Filter the mixture well (a commercial filter or sieve is best, but a piece of muslin or tea towel will suffice).
• Store in a glass container (flagon bottles or jars are excellent), away from sunlight.
• Dilute at the rate of 15-30mls of concentrate per 1L of water, depending on use.

Spray when pests are active; for instance, apply spray in the late afternoon or evenings for night-feeding pests.
Other additives may be used at the first stage. Crushed chilli is very powerful, but be careful not to touch eyes or other sensitive parts when dealing with chilli.

A quicker recipe

• Chop or crush three or four entire bulbs (approximately
  100g).
• Mix with 40mls mineral oil, 500mls water and 25g pure soap flakes.
• Steep for at least 24 hours.
• Filter and dilute at 15mls to 1L of water.

Use for aphids, snails, chewing caterpillars or any soft-bodied insects.

Here are some photos that I have just shot less than half an hour ago:

The first details mainly the potatoes and how I have increased the layer of soil around them to increase the stem area where the tubers can form. Also protects them from exposure to the sun and the potatoes going green. I had to ensure the growing tips of the potatoe plants were still exposed. I did this late yesterday. I the background you can see I relocated the rain gauge behind the potatoes (near the vegetable garden entrance) for a more accurate reading of the rainfall. Before I had it against a post which wasn't good at all.

The next two pictures are at different angles.

The last shows the garlic and leek in the background. Also on the right of the picture shows the newish generation of shallots.Will be able to start harvesting them in a couple of weeks. Yum. The Garlic I expect to harvest in about a month. In a few weeks I will cover them to drastically reduce the amount of rainfall or me watering them. The bulbs need to dry out so I can harvest them in December. If they get wet, harvesting damp bulbs will go mouldy and won't last as long in my cool dark pantry.

Auf Wiedersehn. Bye.

Cucumber and Sweet corn

Sowed Cucumber and Sweet Corn seeds about midday today. Specifically; 3 x Cucumber seeds per hole, 1 x Sweet Corn seeds per hole. Watered well and they at the moment are located inside but uncovered brick courtyard (warm local micro climate). Noticed only one, yes only one Black Russian Tomato seedling plant out of 32 growing. Something has gone wrong here, not sure. Possibly the seeds were off. Very low odds. Hope I have a higher chance in tommorrows Melbourne Cup. :-) Good rain over the weekend - 10mm in total. Also raining now and amount unknown.

Happy vegy gardening!

Regards, Steve the VegyGardener.