Among gardeners and gardeners who prefer harmless methods of protecting crops, soda ash is very popular. The use of white powder in the garden is quite effective in combating pests and diseases - phenomena that pose a danger to the growth and development of plants.
Sodium carbonate is widely in demand in many industries: in the production of glass, cast iron, and household goods. In everyday life, when washing clothes, knowledgeable housewives also use soda ash.
Application in gardening against powdery mildew
Anhydrous sodium carbonate obtained by calcination (calcination) is one of the main helpers in the fight against powdery mildew. Fungal disease of plants caused by various microscopic parasitic fungi is easily recognized by the grayish-white coating on the leaves and the characteristic dark brown balls on their surface and young stems.
Starting at the bottom, the infection gradually spreads to the entire plant, causes yellowing and falling of leaves, cracking and decay of the fruit, and even leads to the complete death of the garden crop. You can fight powdery mildew with a solution of 50 grams of soda ash diluted in a bucket of water. Here you should also rub 40 grams of laundry soap. Once a week in cloudy weather, such a composition is required to spray damaged plants. As a preventive measure, treatment against powdery mildew is recommended 1-2 times during the summer season, starting from the moment of budding.
Against gray rot: soda ash
The use of soda ash in the garden gives an excellent result, in which the plants do not receive a harmful portion of chemicals, but are protected by a "home" remedy that can defeat even gray rot. Such a disease is very dangerous for plants, it quickly infects neighboring specimens. It carries danger to almost all garden crops: lettuce, cucumbers, radishes, cabbage, onions, beets, beans, potatoes.
In cool, rainy summers, gray rot can ruin the whole strawberry crop. Instead of spraying with Bordeaux liquid, Oksikhom, Topaz, Kuproskat, and Champion preparations against this disease, the use of soda solution is recommended. To prepare it, you need to dilute 4 tbsp in a bucket of water. tablespoons of substance and twice a month carry out the top watering of garden crops.
Save the viburnum
Soda ash, the use of which in the garden shows successful results, can help in the fight against viburnum leaf beetle - a beetle that feeds and develops exclusively on viburnum. Huge damage to the plant is caused by the dirty-gray larvae that have overwintered in the bark of young shoots: the pests simply riddle the leaves and are able to completely gnaw the bush, depriving it of green mass.
To protect the viburnum bush, it is recommended to treat the leaves on the underside with a solution consisting of 10 liters of water, a bar of
green soap and a tablespoon of soda. Apply once a week until the pest disappears completely.
Soda ash against cabbage pests
The appearance on the cabbage leaves of caterpillars of cabbage moth, whitewash, moths, scoops threatens with a partial or complete loss of the expected yield, which will help save a proven home remedy - soda ash. Application in the garden for cabbage is recommended by abundantly sprinkling bushes with this substance, mixed in equal proportions with flour. For greater effectiveness, it is recommended to add a little pollen to plants of the cruciferous family in the resulting composition. Processing is not recommended in hot weather, as there is a risk of leaf burns.
You can save white cabbage from the invasion of slugs by pollinating plants and beds with a mixture of a glass of soda and half a bucket of wood ash.
Get rid of aphids
The real misfortune for summer residents is aphids. Small insects gathering in huge colonies, due to their mass, mercilessly destroy plants, sucking out their cellular juice. Along the way, pests secrete poison, which causes deformation and death of foliage, curvature of apical shoots and their stunting. The surface of the leaves is contaminated with sweet secretions that violate the normal functioning of garden and garden crops. Rapidly multiplying and giving up to fifty colonies over the summer, aphids can inflict huge damage on any, even the most well-groomed, summer cottage.
In the line of proven folk methods of combating this pest, soda ash is effectively demonstrating its properties. Application in the garden against aphids is recommended by spraying damaged crops with a solution based on onions. To prepare it, a glass of ground onion through a meat grinder must be diluted in 10 liters of water. Add a tablespoon of soda ash here. It is recommended that the resulting mixture be abundantly sprayed with damaged plants, and the last procedure should be carried out no later than 20-25 days before harvesting.
Rose bush rejuvenation
The use of soda ash in the garden and the vegetable garden is economically beneficial due to the low cost of this substance.
To rejuvenate rose bushes, it is recommended to spray them abundantly every 10 days with a solution of ½ teaspoon of ammonia, 1 teaspoon of soda and 1 teaspoon of English salt diluted in 5 liters of water.
Weed control soda
Soda ash, the use in the garden of which is aimed at protecting crops from diseases and pests, is able to destroy weeds. For example, if concentrated grass is shed several times between small tile seams between tile joints, the latter instantly disappears. This procedure is recommended in dry, hot weather. It is also recommended to process garden tools with the resulting disinfectant.
The use of soda for shrubs
The use of soda ash is effective during the ripening period of grapes and is aimed at increasing the sweetness of fruits and reducing the incidence of gray rot. To do this, spray the aerial parts of the bushes with a solution of 70-80 grams of soda and 10 liters of water. On fruit trees, caterpillars are destroyed by this means.
Soda ash, the use of which is quite popular in the garden, is able to save gooseberries and currants from yellowing and untimely leaf fall.
To do this, it is recommended that shrub plantings be treated with a solution from a glass of soda ash diluted in a bucket of water.
Useful Tips
The use of soda ash in the garden is useful for tomatoes, the taste of which can be significantly improved (sweetened) by several treatments with soda solution during flowering of a vegetable crop. Premature yellowing of the foliage of cucumbers will help prevent irrigation of the basal part with a solution from a tablespoon of soda, diluted in a bucket of warm water.
You can get rid of the invasion of ants by treating the places of their accumulations with soda powder. When mixing the latter with wood ash in equal proportions, the result will please quite quickly: insects will not die, but will quickly migrate to new habitats.
Many summer residents use calcined soda, which is a strong alkali, to determine the level of soil acidity at its site. To do this, pour two tablespoons of soil into two containers. Vinegar should be added to one of them. A hissing reaction will indicate that the soil is alkaline. In another container with the ground, you need to pour a little water (until the consistency of a liquid slurry) and add soda. The hiss of the resulting composition will determine the acidic soil. In the absence of reactions, the soil is neutral, which is considered a very good indicator for most plants.