A pest-free home and garden is always desirable and even more so if this can be achieved without chemicals or expensive formulae and contraptions. The following are the many tips and hints for natural pest control that I have gathered over the years. If you already have essential oils, herbs, spices and a few basic vegetables in your home then these remedies won’t cost you anything.
Cats don’t like citrus smells, so if you’re being bothered by unwanted cats, leave fresh citrus peel around or sprinkle the area with orange or lemon juice or even lemon essential oil. You can also try eucalyptus oil.
Fleas are difficult to deal with naturally once you’ve got them in the house or on the pet but a little tea-tree oil dabbed on the back of the animal’s neck or the top-side of the base of its tail (somewhere it can’t be licked off) will help to prevent them being attracted to your pet. Eucalyptus or pennyroyal leaves scattered in your pet’s bed can also deter fleas.
While cats love catnip, if it’s rats you’re trying to deter then plant it generously — according to The Vegan Society, rats hate it! Mice, meanwhile, can be kept at bay by finding where they are entering your home and plugging these gaps with cotton wool that you have soaked in either peppermint or eucalyptus oil. Alternatively, you can plug the gaps with corks sprinkled with cayenne pepper.
Deter flies with slices of lemon or by strategically placing the lemon scented variety of the common pot plant Pelargonium on windowsills. When it comes to wasps, her tip is to leave a small dish of jam nearby so they feast on that instead of bothering you. Apparently it works… Pots of fresh basil, tansy, mint and other strong smelling herbs will also help deter flies, as will strings of garlic and chilli peppers. Mosquitoes and other biting flies can be repelled by an infusion of elder leaves on your skin, or by a few drops of the following essential oils mixed into some carrier oil and rubbed on your pulses or exposed skin: citronella, eucalyptus, geranium. Mosquitoes also hate the smell of onions.
Deter moths by soaking cotton wool with a combination of any of the following essential oils: clove, cedar, tea tree, lavender, eucalyptus and lemon. Place the cotton wool in your wardrobe or wherever is being affected.
An insecticide spray can be made for indoor and outdoor plants from 3 chilli peppers, ½ an onion, a clove of garlic, a little soft soap and a litre or water. Boil the ingredients together, leave to steep for two days and then spray.
If you know where ants are entering your home, shake some paprika powder over and around the area. This is a good solution for windowsills or doorways but be careful about sprinkling any paprika on carpets as it will stain. Growing tansy and mint is also said to help deter ants. The latter should also keep cabbage butterflies from your vegetable patch, as can southernwood and sage, while thyme and mugwort will prevent them breeding nearby.
While we’re in the vegetable garden, it’s worth mentioning that onions, leeks, rosemary and sage can all help deter carrot fly; and marigolds between rows of potatoes are said to eliminate beetles. Parsley is also known to deter beetles while, back in the home, equal parts of borax and white sugar sprinkled near skirting boards where you suspect they are emerging from can also help. Borax is also known to be a deterrent for cockroaches, ants and silverfish.
Although slugs in the garden provide food for birds, they are hungry lovers of gardener’s plants. There are many suggestions for keeping slugs and snails away from your much-loved leaves — a ring of salt, eggshells or human hair being a few commonly known tips. My mum swears by coffee granules (coffee shops are usually happy to give away their leftovers), Gardener’s Question Time on radio 4 recommend wood ash or soot, and my dad makes beer traps. To make your own beer trap, dig a few yogurt pot or jam jar sized holes in the ground near your favoured plants. Sink a yogurt pot or jam jar in each hole and, in the evening, pour enough beer in each to drown a tempted slug. In the morning you should find the slugs gathered in the beer traps. This method does involve killing animals (which I like to avoid wherever possible) but what a way to die! Slugs hate wormwood, and Joanne Harris, in her novel Blackberry Wine, says we should grow ‘lemon balm around the carrots for the slugs’.
To combat aphids on your plants, grow garlic or nasturtiums nearby. You could also make an extract of nettles, using two handfuls of the plant to ten litres of cold water. When the nettles have steeped for a day, pour the extract around the base of the afflicted plant, avoiding the plant itself. To stop aphids from attacking your roses Joanne Harris advises ‘lavender, lemon balm and cloves stitched into red flannel sachets and tied onto the stems above the soil’. When it comes to such magical techniques, her advice is ‘red for protection, white for luck, blue for healing’. Meanwhile, I have read that opening up a molehill to expose it to the elements during a waxing moon will help deter moles…
References:
Some Tips Concerning Uninvited Guests, Josephine Potter
Humane Pest Control, The Vegan Society
It’s Natural, Alan Hayes
The Green Witch, Barbara Griggs
Traditional Household Hints and Tips, Linda Gray
Blackberry Wine, Joanne Harris
Categories: money saving eco tips
That’s a comprehensive list Gem – you certainly cover the topics well. And it’s nice to see the authors credited – that doesn’t happen often enough! Signed TS (an author! LOL)…
Nice to know that rats hate catnip – will give that a go as I don’t mind cats in the garden. Thanks Gem! Has there been some kind of icky pest you have had particular success treating naturally yourself? i’m currently treating a tick on the cat. Ewwwww.
Carrot flies only fly a small distance above the ground – all you need to protect your carrots is a short (30cm??) barrier, like a piece of garden fleece, wrapped around the carrot plot. Also, if you want to make an insecticide, I find just the soapy water works well on its own, no need to bother pureeing all your veg!
Thanks for the advice, Waveny – it’s good to know that soapy water alone does the trick (actually, I think that’s what my mum uses). I guess the strong smelling veg are just for those with more stubborn pests…
I guess they might deter mice if you have a problem with them eating your pea seedlings, but I can’t imagine chilli putting off an insect pest, judging by how many bugs I have munching my chilli plants at present! One thing to watch with the soap is that sometimes it can damage the leaves of the plant you apply it to, so its best to do it really gently and sparingly. For example, if I have too many soap suds in the sink when washing up (oops, should have watered down the washing up liquid
) I just scoop them off, take them to a blackfly infested plant, and gently stick the suds to the blackfly-plastered bits of the plant. 
Hi Gem Great ideas, especially about the fleas! With three cats I am forever on the look out for possible invasions!
Strangely, none of my three actually mind citrus so as another option there is a plant called Coleus Canina (aka Shoo Cat) that is a great deterrent for cats in your garden! I will be trying the aphid deterrant as the little bleeders are attacking all my roses! 
beer traps are effective at harvesting the snails, but are horrible to empty out! When I had a large organic garden I bought slug nematodes, which you water over the ground and they were quite effective. I, too, just put soapy suds on blackfly, or spray with soapy water if I haven’t any, I’ve never included vegetables in it, what a waste of food!!!
Fair point about food wastage,Cadugdale. I would only use veg that has gone past its food eating stage, though perhaps it’ll have lost its pest averting properties by then, too? I haven’t tried that remedy myself, but included it in the interest of diversity – who knows what will work for someone else?!
I am trying a snail control suggestion I recently read. They like to eat wilted leaves because they are soft like the new growth they always go for, so you leave some picked weeds, or similar in a pile. Basically you are feeding them stuff you don’t mind them eating so they leave your veg alone! I found snail H.Q. was in the log pile, so I’m draping stuff over that for them. So far so good, as long as I remember to replace the stuff every couple of days. I’m off now to try the borax on the ants in the kitchen.
Keep us posted as to whether the wilted weeds work, Alison! I love the idea of the snails keeping away from my lupins and monarda and disposing of the weeds at the same time!