Mustard against the Colorado potato beetle: application in gardening

Why is the Colorado potato beetle dangerous?

A pest known to all gardeners – the Colorado potato beetle feeds on foliage and tops of young vegetables. For some reason, it is generally accepted that he eats potato greens. But the parasite also liked eggplants, bell peppers, even tomatoes. He eats a huge amount of greenery, so that the plant cannot bear fruit. The beetle hibernates in the ground, and with the advent of young leaves it crawls to the surface and eats them. If he eats a young potato bush, then root crops will not form, there will be no harvest. The same will happen with more tender eggplant or pepper bushes.

The beetle itself eats greens, its larvae eat greens, and the female lays her eggs below the leaves. There are many poisons used against this striped pest, but they are usually sprayed on bushes, and the eggs under the leaves may not be affected. In addition, harmful chemicals can be used at the very beginning, and when the ovary is already formed, it becomes dangerous for the crop.

Many gardeners prefer to do without chemistry at all, mechanically destroying beetles. They methodically go around the garden as often as possible, collect adults, cut off leaves with eggs, then destroy both. This is very annoying and not very effective. There are various folk remedies with the use of substances that are less toxic to humans in the fight against pests. Among them, mustard stands out recently.

Useful properties of mustard

We eat Sarepta mustard, and there is also white and black. It happens from powder or from grains, the taste also differs: it can be spicy or sweet. This is a spicy spice that we usually eat with meat. She has a lot of useful properties. With moderate use, it slows down the aging of the skin, protects eyesight, calms the nervous system, protects blood vessels, improves digestion and memory.

It even helps in the fight against bronchitis, it’s not for nothing that we put mustard plasters. But there are people with individual intolerance to this product. And someone should not eat mustard due to exacerbations of diseases, but in general it is a very useful spice. Today it is used very widely: they wash dishes with it (it cleans fat very well), they even make hair and face masks. Read on to find out how you can use this wonderful remedy against garden beetles.

How to use

Mustard is successfully used in addition to cooking and cosmetology. Many summer residents plant it on the site to scare away insects, prevent weeds from growing, even in order to improve soil structure. It grows quickly, does not allow the soil to leach, cleans the earth from phytophthora and scab. It helps to get rid of the wireworm, slugs and codling moth. Mustard can drive out the Colorado potato beetle.

Mustard should be planted, let it grow in the aisles of potatoes and eggplants. During flowering, it can be plucked, decomposed among plants that may suffer from the Colorado potato beetle. Potato plants can be treated with this remedy: in a bucket of water, you need to dilute a pack (100 g) of mustard powder and 100 g of vinegar (9%). Processing is carried out at the beginning of the growth of the tops and then, when there are already a lot of beetles around.

You can also find this recipe: 200 g of mustard powder is diluted in 10 liters of water and infused for 12 hours. When infused, vinegar (150 g) is also added to it. Of course, you need to handle the bushes carefully, not just sprinkle on top, but so that it gets on the bottom of the leaves. It is advisable to do this not before the rain. The Colorado potato beetle does not like the smell of mustard very much, it will leave, will not live where there is a lot of its smell. 

Vinegar mustard is a very effective pest repellent.

They also use onion peel, nettle infusion, vinegar with ash, soap with vinegar – all these tools help to scare away beetles with varying degrees of success, but they do not harm human health and the environment.

Growing mustard at home

Mustard is easy to grow in your area. This is a cute and unpretentious plant. Seeds are placed in the ground to a depth of 1-1,5 cm every 10-15 cm and systematically watered. And after 3 days shoots appear. It does not require any special care, you just need to water and loosen the soil. It is difficult to overestimate the benefits of this humble plant.

Video “Fighting bugs in the garden”

Watch this video to learn how to deal with garden pests.