Garlic can flavour a roast and ward off evil spirits, but it can also quell pesky insect problems.
Warren Ham of Stratford, Ont., sells garlic juice to greenhouses and golf courses to control aphids and mites on bedding plants and mosquitoes in standing water.
Horse stables spray the juice to control insects.
Ham uses an apple cider press to squeeze juice out of garlic he grows and then distills it, adding potassium sorbite and ascorbic acid.
As a spray, it is used in a 50 parts water, one part garlic juice formula. Ham sells it in one and 25-gallon containers.
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Happy customers and repeat sales are his only evidence that the products work.
“I’m not in a position to make a claim,” said Ham, who sees the product as one way to add value to his crop.
Mosquito repellant
Ivan Cavric of Oakwood Natural Fertilizers makes a natural mosquito repellent from garlic juice and black pepper, which he calls the Purple Martin.
“It’s very effective,” he said.
Cavric is working with government to create all-natural labelling. Under the Pesticides Act, his product cannot be sold in Canada as a pesticide unless it is registered.
Garlic extract is one of about 20 plant extracts that has been tested and shown to have some success on grasshoppers, said Dan Johnson, of Agriculture Canada’s Lethbridge Research Centre.
However, it is low on the list of likely products because of the amount that would be needed.
He said it could provide a non-chemical solution to a problem with moderate numbers of grasshoppers for a short time around small plots of garden or crop.
“Many things will kill grasshoppers when they are provided massive doses,” Johnson said.
