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RE: Neem



We made a natural pesticide (what an oxymoron) and a fungicide in Bali using Neem, ginger, tumeric, galanga, EM4, molasses (which was the hardest thing to get in Bali) a little alcohol and some other things. It seemed to work on a fungus that was on some of the limes. A local gardener said he had good luck with it on some insects. We didn't have much of an insect problem, but fungi in the tropics was more of an issue. In the tropics, it has to be used frequently and consistently to work. Ideally,  we want to deal with those issues by creating healthy soil.

 

If anyone wants the recipe, I could dig it out of my miles of piles of files.

 

Penny

 

-----Original Message-----
From: John Schinnerer [mailto:johns@eco-living.net]
Sent: Saturday, September 09, 2000 12:10 PM
To: permaculture
Subject: Re: Neem

 

Aloha,

 

I know an 'elder' woman from India who tells me that neem is somewhat of an all-purpose antibiotic/disinfectant/etc. there (among other things) - simplest recipe she mentioned was to simmer leaves in water for 10+ minutes.  Don't know if this solution would repel bugs from plants or not or is simply for a topical antibiotic...I've used a neem-based bug juice that was quite effective at keeping New England mosquitoes and blackflies at bay; much better than a citronella-based one I tried.

 

One could process home-grown neem to extract the oil for various uses, using similar methods to those used for extracting other plant oils, I would guess.  I will be planting some on my land in Hawai'i this winter...maybe in a couple years I will have more info!  ;-)


John Schinnerer
----------------------------------------------
Cultural & Ecological Designing
Human Habitat Design
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net