Cabbage is a delicious vegetable garden product. When planting seedlings, you always want to get a healthy harvest. But the numerous insect pests that adore this vegetable can spoil our expectations. And the advertised insecticides and acaricides do not always cope with the invasion of aphids, fleas, slugs or caterpillars. In this case, the most ordinary vinegar, which is present in the kitchen of almost every housewife, can help.
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Advantages and disadvantages
Like any remedy, the vinegar used to treat cabbage also has its pros and cons for pests.
The advantages include:
- Availability. Sold in almost every grocery store.
- Harmlessness. In moderate doses, it is not capable of causing harm to plants and humans.
- Simple recipe. You do not need to have special knowledge to prepare a solution for processing.
Disadvantages include:
- Large area. Since each bush is processed separately, in the case of a large planting, processing can take a lot of time and effort.
Caterpillars
Cabbage scoop, whites and turnip eggs lay eggs in the ground near the vegetable or on its lower leaves. At temperatures from +18 to +21 °Caterpillars emerge from these eggs and begin to eat cabbage. They absorb its pulp 24 hours a day, without stopping, which can lead to the death of the plant in 6-12 days.
Solution recipe:
- Pour warm water into a container with a volume of at least 10 liters.
- Add 250 ml of vinegar and 3 tablespoons of sugar.
- Mix the resulting solution thoroughly and fill the spray bottle with an impeller.
Spraying is carried out once every three days.
Aphid
A harmful insect that usually settles on the lower leaves of young cabbage heads. In early spring, the ants transfer the larvae of this pest with a number of growing plants. In the first months of summer, female aphids reach sexual maturity and begin to lay eggs. This is the right time to start fighting.
Solution recipe:
- We take a 5 liter container of hot water.
- Add 100 ml of 9% vinegar and 3 tablespoons of any dishwashing liquid.
- Mix the solution and apply with a broom or sprayer.
Processing is carried out once every 5 days.
Bed bugs and fleas
Spotted bugs and cruciferous fleas suck juice from cabbage leaves, thereby severely damaging them. They are activated at the very beginning of spring, as soon as the soil warms up a little. When they attack, the color of the leaves of the cabbage changes. Plants stop growing and developing, which leads to their death. Store chemicals are often useless in fighting this parasite.
Solution recipe:
- We prepare 6 liters of clean water at room temperature.
- Add 200 ml of vinegar, a teaspoon of ground black pepper and three tablespoons of sugar to it.
- We stir until all components are completely dissolved.
- Pour the product into a spray bottle.
The processing of cabbage with such a solution can be carried out every day.
Tips
It is not difficult to process cabbage, but the following rules must be observed:
- so as not to burn the leaves of cabbage during the heat of the day, it is advised to spray it with vinegar in the evening, after sunset, or in the morning, before the sun has risen;
- Usually, when hovering a solution for spraying cabbage, 9% table vinegar is used. It is allowed to use 70% vinegar essence. In this case, the volume of water used to guide the solution must be increased 10 times. An incorrectly selected concentration of the essence in the solution can burn the leaves of the vegetable;
- the vinegar solution must be used immediately after preparation or placed in a container with a tight-fitting lid. Vinegar evaporates rather quickly, which is why the solution will lose all its beneficial properties;
- it is best to use a vinegar solution in clear and calm weather. If you use it in the rain, you will not be able to achieve the maximum effect, since the rainwater will wash the product off the leaves of the vegetable.
Do you know how to deal with cabbage pests?
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