Organic pest control

I have a formula of ingredients that I use for natural pest control. This spray that I am going to share with you is not a poison , but a deterrent to small animals and many insects. Caution: this recipe involves the use of hot peppers so be very careful in handling the peppers. Avoid inhaling the steam when peppers are cooking or getting the solution on your skin after it's prepared - it will burn.

First I get 3 or 4 habanero peppers and crush them up in a medium sauce pan. The habanero peppers have a high Scoville rating which means they are at the top end of the hot scale. Small rodents and a majority of bugs do not like the smell or the taste. Next add 4 or 5 cloves of garlic and crush them up in the same sauce pan. The same goes for garlic. Most pests do not like the smell or taste of garlic. Add about a quart of water and bring the mixture to a boil for 10 minutes. Take the pan off the heat and let stand until cool. Now you need a t-shirt, cheese cloth or other material you can use to strain out all the solids. Strain the liquid into a pitcher or clean milk jug. Now add to the liquid 2 or 3 tablespoons of dish washing soap. The soap is going to help the mixture stick to the vegetation you spray it on. Finally add another gallon of water to the solution to dilute it before using, and put into a Hudson type sprayer. Set the sprayer nozzle for a fine mist. Take your sprayer into the garden and spray all your plant foliage generously. I like to spray about every 10 days or so. I do discontinue the spraying when plants are in bloom so I do not discourage beneficial bugs during pollination. It has been fairly effective on most common pests. It does not work on the worst pest in the garden , the squash beetle. I have tried many things that are organic on these pests, but I have found no control that is not chemically based that works. The best advice I have for squash beetles is to rotate your crops and pick the eggs off the leaves. If anyone has found an organic control for pests I would love to hear about it. Happy spraying.