Garlic spray for slugs and caterpillars

This spray helps against caterpillars, slugs and snails, and all kinds of other pests: ants, aphids, larvae, insects, and whitefly.

Because the spray contains oil (from the garlic) and soap, it sticks to the plant and suffocates aphids and the tiny caterpillars that hatch from eggs.

It also makes the leaves inedible to those little pests.

They'll avoid the plants you've sprayed.

The smell is pretty intense.

Use the spray, and your garden will smell like a French kitchen.

Ingredients:

Preparation:

Put the water in a bottle, along with the chopped garlic and onion. Let it steep for a few days.

Strain the water and mix it with the cayenne pepper and soap.

To keep the garlic spray from clogging the nozzle of your spray bottle, strain it again through a coffee filter or an old handkerchief.

(Community tip: instead of cayenne pepper, you can also use a few drops of Tabasco if you have that at home. It has the same effect as the pepper, but causes less clogging.)

Then pour it into a spray bottle.

Use:

Spray your plants every few days, including the undersides of the leaves. It's best to do this in the early evening, because that's when slugs and snails become active.

If your goal is only to fight aphids and larvae, repeat this until you no longer see any pests.

After a week, spray one more time to kill newly hatched larvae and eggs.

After rain, spray again.

In this video about caterpillars, I also show you how to make the spray:

Good luck!

Do the slugs keep coming back? In the overview Help! Slugs and snails in your Makkelijke Moestuin, you'll also find other options, from making your raised bed less attractive to slugs to the electric fence.