Make Your Own Organic Oil Soap Garden Spray

My daughter Britta has definitely emerged as the gardening guru in our family. Today she’s sharing with us her homemade organic fungicide that is just as effective and much cheaper than the commercial alternatives and won’t hurt the environment, our pets, or our families. Way to go Britta!

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Britta writes……….   As a gardener in Utah, I love the month of September because the days are a bit cooler and I am still harvesting delicious garden produce throughout the month. However, September in this climate also means the arrival of an insidious and persistent fungal disease you may be familiar with… powdery mildew. *Cue dramatic music.*

Powdery mildew is a fungus that flourishes when the days are warm, the nights are cool, and dew forms on the foliage of the plants. The fungus tends to affect plants that are crowded and receive poor air circulation, such as cucumber, squash, and melons. Unfortunately for me, Utah autumns provide the perfect growing conditions for powdery mildew, and this year is no exception. It has exploded on several of my plants, killing many of the leaves and leaving me scrambling to find an effective treatment.

At first I read that applying milk diluted with water can help kill the powdery mildew. I tried that, but it didn’t seem to do all that much. About a week later, I was in the Garden Center of a local grocery store looking for snail bait, and happened to see a bottle of Neem Oil Spray. This caught my attention immediately, because I was already somewhat familiar with neem oil after using it to make my own body wash in the past. The Neem Oil Spray bottle said it was a natural fungicide and insecticide, suitable for