Deborah: Welcome back to Impact, you’re eye on our community, I'm Deborah Mills, Andy Lopez, The Invisible Gardener goes to work with vinegar, a bag of flour, garlic cloves, peppermint soap and a bottle of Tabasco sauce. He may sound like a Cajun chef but actually, he’s one of the world’s most respected organic gardeners. Welcome back to the program.
Andy: Hi, funny you should mention all those stuff because that’s what I brought.
Deborah: Did you bring me some garlic and some flowers?
Andy: Yeah all the things you mentioned, I didn’t know you’re going to say that.
Deborah: You read my mind. What’s in that bag?
Andy: Let me bring you some stuff out; let me grab something out here. This is sesame sea oil. Sesame seed oil is a wonderful tool for a lot of things. I add a little bit of water, a cupful and a quarter of water. We’re just going to mix up. You spray out of the roses for example. Most bugs wont hate it, they won’t touch your roses but they also cover the rose; fight diseases, you see this is an oil.
Deborah: Yes that’s kind of replacing…
Andy: Yes, it’s the same thing, It’s got that nice smell to it, for us, but for most bugs, and for caterpillars, this is one of the tools, very simple. Also for ants, great for ants.
Deborah: Could you also use this like for… like aphids…like let’s say you got an aphid in infestation.
Andy: Exactly right, so what you do is you get with that, we’ll use a straight, one thing you want to add to these, another thing I brought, so I can pull it off a little fast. So I use a natural soap, this is Doctor Brunner soap; it’s been for a long, long time. This is peppermint, so peppermint has a nice smell too also. The soap alone, you can add a little bit to water and spray your plants and roses, spray it for ants, white flies or add the two together. We have a gallon of water right. So take a little dash of this, a little dash of the soap, fill it up with water and spray. The trick is to learn how strong, you know if you add too much you’re going to burn things. You’re going to kill things, right? .This is great for white flies. The soap is a wetting agent and this is also oil. It is an essential oil that’s made from plants.
Deborah: Peppermint.
Andy: Peppermint, right, this happens to be a peppermint, and let me see what else I brought. This one here for example is chilly oil, so the thing about this one, it says not hot. The more hotter the better.
Deborah: Ah, okay.
Andy: You see, in terms of you know bugs because this chilly oil is even hotter. It’s got pepper in it, peppers, right.
Deborah: Yeah.
Andy: So, you spray that, you use a gallon of water, a little dash of soap, on any from white flies, and spray on around the outside for ants. It works in all insects. It even repels. I spray them on my vegetable garden. I add it to water and spray without the soap, because you know, I go pick the vegetables, you know on soap. This is great, you can eat it and then the rabbits go, o oh. Let me show you something else. You know about garlic right?
Deborah: Yes.
Andy: You know with garlic oil.
Deborah: Oh, okay.
Andy: Again, it’s another oil, see these are oils, oils are great to use, like for example; I use canola oil so I take canola oil and add it to either the sesame or I add it to two together. Then I’ll use that; take a cup of that. In a gallon of water, I just spray it on the roses, underneath the leaves; kills the white flies. I can do it around the trails where the ants are at and the ants will wonk wonk wonk, cover it. It kills them because you spray the oil coats it and suffocates it. But because of the oil, it sticks around longer, the ants, when they come back, they go few; they’re not going to cross that.
Deborah: I’m not going to go back there. Now, with this oil, when is the best time to spray? Would you say in the morning?
Andy: Well, the trick there is to remember. If today’s going to be over 100?; any oil, you’re going to be frying your plants right?
Deborah: Yeah.
Andy: Or you could just water spray in that time to temperature. Ideally, the best time to go out is in the evening or at late in the middle of the night. That’s why I got the name Invisible Gardener. I would go out two or three AM at night.
Deborah. Ah, okay.
Andy: And do my stuff just like all those bugs are doing these things, you see. Well, early in the morning is good but as long as you know the days and nights, like here along the coast no problem. But in the valley, we have a hundred degrees, you spray in the morning, you still have the oil on the leaves you’ll fry right up.
Deborah: Yeah
Andy: Here’s another trick, these are oils, this one is cinnamon oil. You know what cinnamon oil is right?
Deborah: Oh yeah.
Andy: One drop of cinnamon oil in a gallon of water will kill white flies, repel, it also kill almost any insects. You just spray it on ants; the ants go coocoorachas. They wipe all kinds of creatures in just one drop. When I was young I put a whole bottle in a gallon, it’s like whew…right? Very intense.
Deborah: Yeah, knock yourself out.
Andy: And this one here is called orange TKO. You could open this and smell. This is citrus, this is a very nice, and clean…it doesn’t have petroleum distillate because you know, chemicals.
Deborah: Yeah. Ah…Okay.
Andy: And this is very nice, nice and clean but this does the same thing. This is actually a cleaner, so it’s a natural cleaner. You clean; you know, grease and different things. I use it around the house because we have kitty cats and sometimes I can’t breathe due to the hair.
Deborah: Yeah.
Andy: But, a little bit…a cupful in a gallon of water, what I do is I have like…to add this two together. So then, we have the citrus and the canola together and you’ll only need a little of this and you know everybody has a white fly problems. This stuff here will get rid of the white flies, because it leaves a coating on it; leaves the oils on there. When the white fly comes they are stuck on it kills them. We’ll give you something else, let’s see, you can buy this in most stores, and this one you apply it, let’s see if I can do it for you, alright?
Deborah Okay.
Andy: See if you can smell it.
Deborah: Oh…
Andy: Yeah, guess what it is.
Deborah: It smells like Hawaii.
Andy: Vanilla hazelnut.
Deborah: Oh, how wonderful.
Andy: So that’s just an essential oil, it’s just put in their can. Just like this, it’s been put under pressure so you can do it right? And then, you could use this on spiders, if you have insects in the house, you don’t know what to do, just a little bit…
Deborah: All of these are good.
Andy: All of these are good.
Deborah: We’re out of time! Again, so quickly, so quickly.
Andy: I know, I know…
Deborah: For more information about the Invisible Gardener, check the website at invisiblegardener.com, and you’re watching Impact.
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