Essential Oil Recipes for the Garden
The idea of beginning a garden is often appealing in the spring. Who doesn’t love homegrown fresh herbs and veggies? However, the reality is that a garden is often time-consuming and can seem to need a lot of space . Below you will find some ideas for making your garden thrive, including tips for using essential oils.
Essential oils are powerful garden tools that can be used daily to help promote the health and vitality of yourself and your garden. Because they are safe and effective, essential oils provide a great alternative to garden chemicals. In this article, you will learn how to use essential oils to protect you and your plants against environmental threats and to promote the health of your garden.
Pin for later
When using oils in the garden, you’ll find there are many different ways to do so. Using the oils in the garden is most effective on airborne pests, and potentially many others as well.
Like humans, plants breathe in oxygen and can soak in the benefits of Essential Oils just by having them in the air around them.
You can improve both the abundance and the taste/nutrition of the plants you grow by incorporating Essential Oils into your gardening. They are simple, safe, and very effective.
Recent studies show that using JASMINE with plants reduced stress noticeably when compared to gardens that did not use Jasmine. You can also use the RESTFUL BLEND, UPLIFTING BLEND, or LAVENDER.
Attracting Garden Pollinators with Essential Oil
Pollination is a key element to the successful production of fruits and veggies, and Essential Oils can help us attract those beneficial pollinators that make our garden abundant.
Making a simple spray using Essential Oils and spraying on blossoms can encourage more visitors—which means more fruit!
Essential Oils to use to attract pollinators like bees to your garden:
- Geranium
- Roman Chamomile
- Wild Orange
- Basil
- Rosemary
Essential Oils to Attract Butterflies to your garden:
- Clary Sage
- Lavender
Essential Oil Pollinator Attractor Spray Recipe
INGREDIENTS
- 2 – 4 drops of Wild Orange Essential Oil
- 8 oz. water
DIRECTIONS
- Add to glass spray bottle.
- Shake.
- Spray on leaves.
Companion Planting in Your Garden with Essential Oils
Companion planting is an effective way to help strengthen the health of your garden. Certain combinations of plants help them to grow and ward off pests. You may be familiar with this concept. For example, planting basil and tomatoes side by side. However, you may not have the space for all these extra plants, especially if you are doing a container garden.
Essential oils can be effective for dealing with strengthening the immune function of plants or as a “companion.”
Find out what the “companion plant” is for your vegetables, and use that essential oil instead of the actual plant if you don’t have space to plant more. For example, tomatoes and basil work well together to create vigor for growth and plant resistance. So, water the tomato plant with Basil essential oil in the water for similar results.
Here is a Basil Spray Recipe that you can use on the tomato plant can improve the health, nutrition, and taste of tomatoes in much the same way as if you were to plant a Basil plant next to the tomato. It’s important to dilute heavily in order to not harm the plant.
Essential Oil Basil Spray for Tomato Plants
INGREDIENTS
- 2 – 4 drops of Basil Essential Oil
- 8 oz. water
DIRECTIONS
- Add to a small glass water spray bottle.
- Shake.
- Spray on base of plant.
Companion Planting essential oil substitutes for your garden
Use these essential oils for the corresponding vegetables to help strengthen the health of that vegetable when you don’t have the companion plant.
How to use Essential Oils to Repel Insects, Aphids, Gnats, and Pests
Pin for later
In the summer, we’re faced with the ever-growing population of insects. Each year there seems to be more and more different varieties of every species. Ticks, mosquitoes, flying insects, creepy crawlies, and bugs that eat through every plant in your yard.
Fight back against these pesky critters with your own, do-it-yourself blends of essential oils that repel insects. Whether you want a spray for your plants, a portable diffuser to repel insects while you’re enjoying your evenings outside, or a lotion to soothe and repel, one of these recipes will fill the need.
Garden Pest Repellent Spray
One of the trickiest parts of building and maintaining a healthy garden is keeping pests out. Conventional insecticides contain harmful chemicals that could be dangerous to pets or family members. Luckily, essential oils contain powerful properties that can help keep your garden bug-free, the natural way. This simple DIY uses the power of Peppermint oil to ward off unwanted visitors, keeping your home and garden happy.
Here is a basic Spray recipe to make for Bug Free Gardening:
- Add 10 drops of essential oil to an 8 oz spray bottle (choose from the chart below depending on the pest).
- Add 1/2 tsp Castile soap
- Top the bottle with water.
- To use, shake the bottle then spray plants as needed.
Here is a list of Essential Oils you can use for various pests in your garden:
Of course, you can use your own special blend of essential oils for your specific requirements. But if you need some creative ideas and recipes for bug repellent, here are a few suggestions:
- ANTS: Peppermint
- APHIDS: Peppermint, Sandalwood, White Fir
- BEETLES: Peppermint, Thyme
- CATERPILLARS: Peppermint
- CHIGGERS: Geranium, Lavender, Lemongrass, Thyme
- CUTWORM: Thyme
- FLEAS: Lavender, Lemongrass, Peppermint
- FLIES: Basil, Clove, Eucalyptus, Lavender, Peppermint, Rosemary, Geranium
- GNATS: Patchouli, Citronella, Lemongrass, Rosemary
- MICE: Peppermint
- MOSQUITOES: Citronella, Geranium, Lavender, Lemongrass, Lemon Eucalyptus (note: Lemon Eucalyptus is not the same as Eucalyptus)
- MOTHS: Lavender, Peppermint, Geranium
- PLANT LICE: Peppermint
- SLUGS: White Fir, Cedarwood
- SNAILS: Patchouli, White Fir
- SPIDERS: Peppermint
- TICKS: Lavender, Geranium, Lemongrass, Thyme
- WEEVILS: Patchouli, Sandalwood, Cedarwood
- JAPANESE BEETLES: Rosemary
As you can see, many of the same essential oils can be used to repel different insects, making it convenient to mix up a single batch.
All Natural Weed Killer with Essential Oil
Use this all natural weed killer instead of the harmful chemical weed killers that have been proven to cause cancer.
This week killer contains only safe, natural ingredients.
To make your all natural weed killer:
- Add 20 drops of Clove Oil to a spray bottle (you could also use Cinnamon Essential Oil instead of Clove)
- Add 20 oz of Vinegar
- Add a pinch of Salt
- Shake before spraying on weeds.
Be sure that you do not apply this spray directly to garden plants that you want to keep, and use white vinegar only. Apple cider vinegar emits a sweet smell that fruit flies love, and can make a pest problem much worse.
Gardener’s Hand Soap Recipe
After a day of gardening, dirt can get caked onto your hands and is hard to come off. Use this soap recipe to easily remove all that grime.
INGREDIENTS:
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1/2 cup liquid Castile soap
- 2 TBL olive oil or FCO (fractionated coconut oil)
- 7 drops Clary Sage
- 5 drops Tea Tree
or choose to use Geranium essential oil as show in the photo. Use whichever you prefer.
DIRECTIONS:
- In a small bowl, add all ingredients and stir until smooth and combined.
- Pour into air-tight container and keep next to sink for easy use.
- To use, grab a handful and scrub on your dirt-covered hands. After you’re done, your hands will be clean, soft, and exfoliated.
Related Posts
You may also like this recipe for Cleaning Your fruit and veggies that come from your garden
Harmony in Bloom: Gardening with Essential Oils video course + Garden planner
If you’re interested in non-toxic gardening solutions, you’ll love this workshop on Gardening with Essential Oils.
It includes:
- 25 minute instructional video
- DIY Gardening Recipe book
- a 52 page gardening planner (I sell this alone for more than the cost of the entire bundle!!)
Help you garden thrive and feel good about eating the vegetables you grow!!
If you think this could help you too, you can for only $9!
Before You Go, See What’s New On The Blog
Dawn Goehring
Dawn Goehring is the founder of Desert Naturals where she writes educational articles on essential oils, DIY’s on natural beauty products, homemade cleaners, and provides related essential oil accessories like planners, trackers, tshirts, and custom designed essential oil storage. She has been featured in articles on Porch.com, Redfin.com, MommyOnPurpose and more.
Dawn has earned an aromatherapist degree and has earned a doTERRA essential oil specialist certification which is a fancy way of saying she has learned a lot about the chemistry of essential oils and how they work in the body.