Old Dishwater and Homemade Insecticides

Seems the older I get the more I go back to doing things the old way. Sometimes that isn't a bad thing to do.  This is one of those times.

I remember the old dishpan. It had yellow and red flowers enameled on it; I thought it was just the fanciest thing. As soon as I finished washing breakfast dishes during summer, my Granny Ninna would pour the dishwater into the bucket that sat on the floor beside the stool that I stood on. I'd rinse out the fancy dishpan and turn it upside down to drain. I wasn't big enough to carry the bucket to the back porch but I knew why it was being saved. Ninna made concoctions using the old dishwater and a few other kitchen ingredients, concoctions that would deter the bugs that ate her plants. It was only breakfast dishwater she saved, perhaps because it didn't contain a wide variety of food remnants: flecks of my oatmeal, a bit of Dad's sunny side up egg, a crumb of Mom's toast, the dregs from Ninna's coffee; it simply remained mostly soapy.

Sometimes she was after slugs, sometimes it was some kind of worm that attacked the cabbage, and occasionally it was those little mites found on the leaves of Mom's houseplants. Often it was rabbits. But her concoctions always started with old used dishwater.

Slugs, whiteflies and cutworms:  Hot garlic tea

"Mix up some of that hot garlic tea," she'd say, "I've found whiteflies and slugs!"

I'd climb up on a stool and grab a garlic bulb, find an onion stored in the bottom of the cupboard, look for the little jar of peppers that read 'H-O-T' on its label and with an empty one quart blue/green tinted Mason jar I'd make my way to the back porch and the bucket of that day's breakfast dishwater. (I was never allowed to touch the hot peppers that grew in the garden but Ninna kept them freshly sliced in a smaller Mason jar in our refrigerator.)

First I'd crush the garlic in a little stone bowl using the handle of a kitchen knife. While I did that, Ninna chopped the onion really fine and added it to the garlic. Once they were crushed and chopped, I'd mix them together with a fork; I can remember very well the tears that dropped from my eyes right into the mixture, tears caused by the strong scents of the garlic and onion. I think my tears might have been the secret ingredient.

Once the tears were dried, the onion-garlic mix was scooped into the one quart Mason jar and sprinkled with a couple of spoonsful of her chopped hot pepper, then covered with the morning's dishwater. She'd place the concoction out in the sun for a while, maybe an hour, maybe a little more. We had a lid that matched the Mason jar, a special one piece metal lid that had holes punched through it. I remember watching her punch those holes using a hammer and nail; one hard tap of the hammer and that tough little nail poked right through the metal lid. The lid went on the jar after the 'garlic tea' had steeped in the sun and as soon as she deemed it a perfect tea, she tightened the lid, turned the jar upside down and shook the tea all over the plants that the slugs or whiteflies were destroying. One leaf at a time, one slug at a time, she kept the pest population down to almost none. The mix lasted about a week in the fridge, and then we'd make some more. That went on all summer and I don't remember being bothered much by slugs,  cutworms or whiteflies; neither were the plants.

Garlic tea is also an excellent repellent for sweet corn earworms if sprinkled or sprayed on the silks as soon as they appear. Earworms immediately run the other way.

Spider mites and slugs:  Salt tea

I don't know if she was in a hurry, but sometimes Ninna only asked for a quart of her 'salt tea'. That was a lot easier to make. I had my own little set of aluminum measuring spoons, a bit dented from all the use I gave them, but they must have measured just fine because I always measured out one tablespoon of salt into the Mason jar, then covered it with dish water. I stirred the salt tea with a long handled wooden spoon, watching the used water get a little cloudier through the green tint of the jar.  She didn't let that tea steep, she just put the holey lid on the Mason jar and sprinkled salt tea wherever she saw spider mites. She used it on slugs as well, I remember. The slugs sort of lost their volume, quivered and died. I don't know what happened to the spider mites, I never liked to watch the demise of anything, not even invading pests.

Lots of bugs:  Hot pepper-spearmint-horseradish tea

This recipe was Ninna's most powerful weapon and when we made it, I knew she was declaring war on anything that wiggled, crawled, slithered or nibbled on a leaf, including critters. I usually gathered the ingredients for her, but she mixed it herself.  This was Ninna's "hot pepper-spearmint-horseradish tea" and in making it, I got to use my metal measuring cup, the one that held 1/2 cup.

Ninna chopped up the hottest pepper she had till she had 1/2 cup, she did the same with leaves of spearmint I'd gathered, a half cup. The horseradish root was chopped and added along with chopped green onion tops, each one was 1/2 cup. Now at this point she added a spoonful of lye soap that she scooped from the bottom of the soap dish, you know that part of the soap that gets soupy from sitting in a bit of water as it's used. She added all these ingredients to the Mason jar and added enough water to cover them. She placed the jar in the sun long enough to get slightly warm, then she filled it almost to the top with more old dishwater. Only then was I allowed to stir with the long handled wooden spoon. The holey lid went on the jar and she sprinkled the tea wherever she thought a bug might be.

This particular tea didn't make very much liquid because it was so filled with chunks of the mix.  We didn't use it very often, only when Ninna determined we had a total invasion of buggy pests. I've recently tried it on Japanese beetles, and let me tell you, it still works. Problem is, you generally have to double or triple your recipe to have enough for their massive invasions. The tea itself might last a few days stored in a cool place, but I've never had any left over. I have, however, used the ingredients over again a time or two, just by adding more dishwater. It doesn't seem to lose its effectiveness if I place it in the sun for a little while. And if I don't have lye soap, I substitute a liquid dishwashing organic soap. Of course Ninna wouldn't have had a liquid soap back in those long ago days, so she used watered-down lye soap.

The problem with Ninna's strong concoction is that while it worked on most bugs and even kept the rabbits away, unless it really rained with some force, you needed to wait a little while before sneaking a bite of a ripe tomato right off the vine.  Her super tea could surely burn a tongue.

Flying and crawling insects; critters, too:  Clove Tea

I love the scent of cloves; it always reminds me of Christmas, but it seems that insects don't particularly like its scent or its taste. This applies to both crawling as well as flying insects. I measured two tablespoons of whole cloves into the Mason jar, adding the well used dishwater almost to the brim and placing it in the sun for awhile again.  And one more time, it was sprinkled through the holey lid onto the infested plant. It still works like a charm.  Critters don't seem to like cloves either.  Cloves can also be sprinkled around the base of plants.

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I've often wondered why Ninna made her concoctions from old dishwater and I think it was for two reasons. It would have had just enough lye soap in it to be effective and it was a good way to 'recycle' water, even though that term was unknown back in the days of the '40s and '50s.

And maybe the old dishwater doesn't matter at all, perhaps just plain water would do. I don't risk it, though, if I have to use plain water, I make sure I add a little organic liquid dishwashing soap; not detergent, just plain soap. The problem with many liquid detergents and soaps is that they destroy or damage plants. I know that Dawn liquid dishwashing detergent is used to diminish oil spills at the marinas here in the lakes region of western Kentucky. If it diminishes the oils from the lakes, could it also damage oils in some plants? I don't know, but I don't take the risk. I'll stay with organic soap. Minor health risks for Dawn are listed here.

These are the 'teas' I grew up with, knowing if they worked for Ninna, they'd work for me. I'm sure there are others, but as for me, I've only ever used the four I've listed.

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-One thing I might mention here, you should always remember to apply your teas to the underside of leaves as well as the surface.

-More recently I learned that soaking a cotton ball in hot sauce and burying it just below the soil in a potted plant will keep insects at bay for as long as a month. That works well when you are bringing plants inside for winter.

-The homemade insecticides I've listed should be safe for garden fruits, bushes, vegetables and flowers, but each should be tested on a small area before using it full force on your plants. You should also keep in mind that all insecticides will kill beneficial insects as well as those that are problems. It's best to only treat infested plants and not those that are healthy, in order to avoid repelling or killing beneficials. And in all cases, it's best to know your insects and your critters before trying to repel them.

For more information about houseplant pests, read this article by Paulgrow.

Read about beneficial insects in this article by wildflowers.

As for critters, you might want to read this article.

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Photos: Mason fruit jar, Carolyn Montague; whiteflies, Wikimedia GNU License (Gaucho); all other photos are from Wikimedia Creative Commons