Homemade Hot Pepper Spray for Organic Gardening

Directions

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   First, let me make it very clear that you need gloves for making this homemade garden bug spray!
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   How do I know this? Because I didn’t use gloves and I now consider that to be one of the most terrible decisions I’ve ever made. I don’t eat much spicy food and have next to no experience with hot peppers, so I vastly underestimated the burn of these little plants. My fingertips were still sore two days later, and let’s not even discuss the whole putting-in-my-contacts incident. (It was bad. I wore glasses for a long time after that.) Just take my word for it and wear the gloves, okay? Also, consider goggles and some kind of mask. I clipped a dish towel over my face, so it doesn’t have to be fancy, but this stuff will absolutely irritate your throat if you don’t protect yourself.
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   Having warned you fairly, I feel okay to give you the rest of the instructions.
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   To make your homemade garden bug spray, first, chop up your peppers and measure the two cups of them. Don’t worry about getting them finely chopped, but make sure that they’re small enough that you can get an accurate measurement.
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   When they’ve been cut up, put them in the food processor with the garlic cloves (a whole bulb’s worth) and cayenne pepper and puree them.
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   Add water as necessary to keep the food processor working correctly.
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   When you’ve finished pureeing them, put them in a 5 gallon bucket and pour four gallons of water over them. Cover the bucket up and let the concoction sit for about 24 hours.
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   Strain out the hot peppers (it works best to pour the liquid into another 5 gallon bucket and catch the peppers in cheesecloth or a tiny strainer) and add the three tablespoons of dish soap. This might seem like a strange addition, but the soap will help the spray spread out over and stick to the plant leaves.
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   Once you have everything mixed and all of the pepper chunks out, pour the hot pepper spray into your garden sprayer. If you don’t have a garden sprayer, keep it stored in your bucket and pour it into a spray bottle as you need it.
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    To Use
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    You’ll need to coat your plants with this well and make sure to re-apply every few days. Twice a week is ideal. Make sure you aren’t applying in the heat of the day, though–hot pepper spray is best applied in the evenings.
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    IMPORTANT:  Do not put the spray on edible parts of produce. You do not want this strong spray on your yummy garden food. 
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    Note on Hot Peppers
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    Note: This pepper spray will not hurt birds if they are nibbling at your sprayed plants. Birds cannot sense capsaicin, and will often eat hot peppers and seeds.
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    Hot pepper spray is a proven, natural pest deterrent for the garden. If this is a product you’ve used for years, it’s worth trying to make your own. It’s inexpensive, simple to do, and it doesn’t take long. I plan to keep our homemade hot pepper spray around for the rest of the summer, and I’ll definitely make more next year.
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    Do you think you’ll try out this recipe?
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    If you have other all-natural homemade garden bug spray recipes share them below.
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