Gardening hacks: Expert reveals how you can use vinegar
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In a YouTube video for KIII 3 news, South Texas gardener, Gabriel Vega shared how white vinegar can be used for cleaning and pest control. White vinegar is typically used as a household cleaning product, however, it can also be used as a gardening tool. Mr Vega described how you can use it to clean old containers such as clay pots, fabric pots or any other container you’re re-using.
Many containers can become encrusted with salt over time due to mineral deposits in the soil and fertiliser or tap water.
The gardening pro said white vinegar is “excellent for removing these salts”.
One of the more unusual uses for white vinegar that Mr Vega mentioned was using it to get rid of pests.
He said: “You can also use it for an insecticidal soap with a slightly different dilution.
“That dilution rate for an insecticidal spray is going to be 30 percent vinegar, 70 percent water and one teaspoon of some kind of natural soap.
“What you want to do is put that in some kind of spray bottle like so.
“I recommend something that has a nozzle that you can move.
“The reason that is is because true plant-eating insects – white flies and spider mites – reside underneath the leaf.
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“Whenever you’re using a regular spray bottle and you’re trying to spray underneath the leaf.. typically you don’t get a good spray actually under the leaf.”
Mr Vega said if you use a nozzle that can be adjusted, you can typically hit where the pest infestation is taking place.
He showed viewers by adjusting the nozzle and spraying the solution upside down.
Mr Vega described using white vinegar as an “all natural” solution.
Whitefly, also known as glasshouse whitefly, is a sap-feeding insect that mainly infects house plants and greenhouse plants.
The flies excrete a sticky substance, known as honeydew, onto the leaves.
The sticky substance can allow black, sooty moulds to grow on the leaves.
They can infect plants like cucumbers, melons, tomato plants, peppers, poinsettias, verbenas, pelargoniums and fuchsias.
Using the vinegar solution should help eliminate the flies.
However, the Royal Horticultural Society also recommends hanging sticky, yellow sheets above the plants to help trap the flies.
The flies also like to feed and breed on weeds so getting rid of any weeds close to your other plants could help.
Making sure your plants are well ventilated will also stop certain moulds from developing.
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