Whats the best way to a greener, cleaner spring cleaning, and a more natural pest free garden?
Posted March 2, 2010 – 3:51 pm in: Cape Cod Green Cleaning NewsHello, I was wondering if anybody had any good ideas to a greener spring cleaning ( More natural, enviormentally friendly) way of major cleaning around the house, and also a good way to keep your garden green, and clean of any bad pests that love to eat my veggies! Thank you! <3
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You can make your own household cleaners… from stuff you already have around the house. See link below.
As for natural pest control, try planting companion plants, like marigolds and tomatoes. Or by using beneficial insects. See Link for more info.
FYI – you can also purchase many “green” products at your local grocery store for cleaning. Your local garden center should sell many of the natural pest controls for your garden too.
Can of green spray paint.
For the cleaning part of your questions; get a steamer. I have a Shark model that kind of looks like a small canister vac with a hose on it. It generates a ton of steam! I use it on everything from counters to floors, windows, wood work, stove, gas grills. No chemicals, just plain old steam. But do get some of the microfiber cloths, they are an important part of the equation. They wipe up better than anything else! I got mine at Sam’s Club and got 20+ of them for less the $10.
For the gardening part, stop using chemical fertilizers and sprays. Only use if absolutely necessary! Start a compost pile/bin. Place all your veggie kitchen scraps in there and make your own fertilizer. Use your leaves in the fall for mulch or add to the compost pile. If you feel the need to feed certain plants before the compost pile is producing, there are a number of good organic products. I use deodorized fish oil emulsion for many of my container plants and when I plant seedlings to give them a good start. After the compost pile is producing, compost tea works great!
Encourage the birds with feeders and bird baths. Bird eat a ton of bugs! Even if the adult birds seem to prefer seeds, they feed bugs to their young. Even pigeons eat a lot of bugs! Plant native species to your area; they will be hardier and require less care. Use newspaper under your mulch instead of weed barrier. Lay a pad of 6-8 sheets thick over the area, soak with the hose, add your mulch and wet down the mulch. The wetting helps bind the two together. And mulch stays much better on newspaper than on the weed barrier if it’s windy too.
Garden lime also works as pest control along with improving your soil. Most bugs don’t like crawling around in it and won’t. Depending on the bug, something as simple as dishsoap and water in a spray bottle will take care of the issue.
About the only thing I use a pesticide for is ants; haven’t found a good replacement for that. I use the Terro stuff as the package directs and at least that’s a bait type product rather than spraying all over and around the house and killing the good buds with the bad.. And it gets rid of the entire nest not just killing what is in the spray zone.
I’m trying to go the green route myself. I switched over to some green cleaning supplies. That is definitely a start. I like the Green Works products by Clorox. I also tried the Seventh Generation, which is good too. If you use paper towels, I would start using recycled ones.