CUCUMBER BEETLE SPRAY

[canadamike]

I lost my supply of Dr Bonner peppermint soap, the cap split and the bottle emptied itself.

So I went to the pharmacy, bought peppermint oil and put it in dish soap with water to spray on the plants.

Results: Day one, infestation, then spray, then no bugs.

Day 2: Looked up the 200 ( or so...) cucurbit plants, saw 6 beetles on 2 plants after thorough inspection and shaking of all plants. It works...

Day 3: about 30 beetles or so, way ahead of the gazillions I had before, but enough to tell me the smell is disappearing and they are coming back. So I , too, come back...with the soap...!

Should anybody have a suggestion on how to make the smell more permanent ( fixing agent of some sort), I would appreciate

I just read that the «McDonald agricultural college, close to here uses kaolin clay in spray form to fight them, with a high level of success.

[johno]

Mike, it sounds like you're really on to something there. What concentration to you use?

Sorry to hear about the mishap...

[canadamike]

I had a one ounce bottle, I would say I put about one quarter of it in a gallon of water with about one ounce of dish soap. Did you try the Dr Bonner soap?

[johno]

I tried it. It does seem to discourage them. Sounds like maybe I should try more than 1 tsp per gallon.

[canadamike]

Since I have tons of peppermint at the house, I pressure cooked a whole bunch of it, in the faint hope to catch some oil.

Lesson 1) Get ready to clear the area. The smell in the kitchen is so powerful your eyes will leak like crazy. This is probably the volatile essential oils vaporizing... I think I will make extract in alcool next time...

Lesson2) Get ready to enjoy hyper-strong mint tea. Well, it can always be diluted...

I'll try the tea in the garden, along with some fresh stems I'll simply plant and water, as if I wanted them to root. As long as they stay alive, they will smell, and some will probably root