This morning I awoke and proceded with my normal routine. I made the bed, turned on the computer and went outside to water my plants. I started with my herbs and moved on to my vegetables. I was shocked to find a multitude of tiny little grasshoppers having my eggplant for breakfast. Horrified, I ran into the house and quickly made a pot of coffee! No, not to wake myself up, but to spray on my grasshoppers. Yes, it’s true. Grasshoppers do not like coffee. Make a strong pot of coffee let it cool and spray it on your plants. Just to make sure, I also dug a small hole in the ground next to my eggplant and placed a jar with one part molasses and 10 parts water. The sweet smell of the molasses will entice your new green little friends to the jar instead of your plant where they will dive in and drown. Make certain that you clean out your trap daily.

A few other methods to try to rid yourself of these garden pests is a pepper spray using jalapenos, habaneros or any other hot pepper to repel the adults. Include some castile soap in with this concoction. A garlic oil is also effective, combine three ounces of minced garlic cloves with one ounce of mineral oil. Let the oil soak for 24 hours or longer and strain the big pieces out, then mix one teaspoon of fish emulsion with sixteen ounces of water you want to also add one1 tablespoon of castile soap to this mixture. Then slowly combine the fish emulsion water with the garlic oil. Mix 2 tablespoons of garlic oil with 1 pint of water and spray directly to your plants.

To prevent the shocking experience that I had this morning from happening to you, plant “grasshopper repelling” barrier plants around your garden. Plant the herb horehound or cilantro. Grasshoppers are also not big fans of peas or sweet clover. Plant some Calendula flowers, which, by the way can be used as a Saffron substitute. They are also used to add into to salads, egg, or cheese dishes and they have anti-inflammatory properties when applied to the skin. But that’s another blog!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 11:09 am and is filed under General, Gardening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.