If you’re having a hard time in the fight against garden pests, you may want to try using pepper.
Some say this common and inexpensive kitchen staple is a good deterrent for pests that like to cause havoc on home gardens. Black pepper acts as a plant’s natural antibacterial agent. It may be a spice, but it can also be used as an insecticide. If you mix in black pepper with your garden soil, it can reportedly help prevent ants. It seems the smell of peppers is sometimes just enough to irritate ants so that they leave your plants alone.
Because of its aromatic properties...
You can usually safely mix black pepper powder and water in a spray bottle and spray in on your garden to treat fungus infestations, too. Other garden experts recommend using ground red pepper on your garden. It can reportedly help keep flying insects away that like to feast on fruit, flowers, and leaves. It’s said you can also sprinkle ground red pepper, or rather cayenne pepper, around the base of plants to keep crawling pests away. Sure, many people love to work their way up the heat scale, but peppers don’t always have the same enjoyment level for insects and animals.
Red pepper is sometimes used to repel rodents, as well as other unwanted wildlife in your garden, like deer, skunks, and rabbits.
While many humans love the taste of hot peppers, it seems certain animals aren’t too keen on the taste or the smell. The capsaicin in pepper spray often irritates animals enough that they leave your plants alone and go searching for a meal somewhere else. If you want to make your own red pepper spray, all you need is chopped up red chili peppers and water. Put in it a blender, strain it, then pour it in a spray bottle. Just be sure you don’t accidentally spray it in your own eyes.
