Readers share ways to discourage garden pests> Simple ingredients found at home fight old foes

Many thanks to those who responded to my request for home remedies for garden pests. I really enjoyed your anecdotes about getting rid of everything from aphids to raccoons.

For those who didn’t respond — this is my chance to gently chastise you — I know how busy summertime is, and I’ll forgive you this time (wink). This is your chance to redeem yourself — next winter when you are desperate for correspondence, we’ll dream up another topic to share ideas with each other.

Here’s what fellow gardeners said about controlling pests in their gardens.

Bonnie Jardin of Blue Hill writes that aphids, whiteflies, leaf miners and other pesky insects are repelled with a blend of “water, cayenne pepper, garlic and some of the offending insects themselves. Add a dash of dish detergent plus several drops of vegetable oil and spray on susceptible plants. This must be repeated after rain, of course,” she notes.

This slurry is popular among other gardeners too. It seems garlic is the most important offensive ingredient. I learned from Dawn and Roger Roberts of Morrill that simple garlic powder applied to the leaves of potatoes will make Colorado potato beetles run for uncontaminated ground.

Marie McNally of Sherman Mills has had success controlling insects with a spray solution made of 1 cup ammonia, 1 quart water and 1 tablespoon liquid dish detergent. Once her plants reach 2 to 4 inches in height, they are “sprayed generously at least once a week.”

McNally adds, “We also found a remedy for getting rid of those pesky slugs! I had heard that shallow pans (such as pie pans) placed around the garden and filled with beer would draw the slugs to drink. They would get into the pans, be unable to crawl out, subsequently drowning.” To avoid the cost of beer, McNally came up with a cheap, effective substitute.

“I had some Kool-Aid that the children absolutely disliked, so rather than dump it down the kitchen sink, I placed it in shallow pans in the garden. The results are almost immediate! I will admit when it comes time to empty those pans that are full of slugs I get a little squeamish, but the end result is worth that little inconvenience.”

Madeline Cyr of Stockholm writes, “I found bugs hate marigold and its odors. Deer, slugs, raccoons, skunks and certain snakes and insects also hate powdered mustard, red pepper flakes and ammonia mixed with a little water and sprinkled around the vegetable garden. Leftover dishwater,” she adds, “will kill cabbage worms.”

Jardin has another idea for discouraging raccoons. “Place mothballs every few feet all around the perimeter of the corn patch. The rain does not melt them, and I am very careful to pick them all up after the season is over.” To keep the critters away from the garbage, she adds, “Placing some in garbage cans (outside any plastic bag liners) also works wonderfully.”

For deer control, Jardin “heard from `old-timers’ that the night’s chamber pots — urine only — would be dutifully carried out each day and poured around the edge of the garden, with excellent results.”

Dorothea Milliken of Exeter has a more labor-intensive but perhaps more pleasant control for deer. She wrote, “To keep deer out of our garden, I have tried human hair, scented soap and foul-smelling commercial deterrents. This year I’m trying an inexpensive doubled fence and have had as yet no deer damage. The stakes are 4 feet apart, with about 6 feet of working space between garden and inner fence, and a 4-foot space between the two fences.”

“It is not at all a sturdy arrangement,” she continues. “The stakes are pounded into the earth just 6 inches, but it was set up before anything started growing, before the deer learned what they were missing. The fences are not too high to jump over, but jumping the outer would get the deer tangled in the inner. The placement of the stakes is staggered so that twine spaces in one fence are opposite stakes in the other.”

“For gates,” she adds, “I put loops on the ends of the twine to hook over cuphooks placed on the stakes. I don’t bother mowing between the fences, preferring wild flowers.”

I hope these little gardening tidbits help some of you skirt late-season insect damage. If not, perhaps you can save them for next year’s troubles. Thanks again to these women for sharing their ideas with us!

Diana George Chapin is the NEWS garden columnist. Send horticulture questions to Gardening Questions, c/o MaineWeekend, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402-1329. Selected questions will be answered in future columns. Please include your name, address and telephone number.