Cannabis Chronicles

We’ve mentioned Planet Ganja before here at the Cannabis Chronicles, it’s a Cannabis forum that’s got a very strong measure of free speech in it’s founding philosophy. Not only does that make the forum itself unique in the cannabis community, it also means the forum itself attracts unique individuals who are knowledgeable and not afraid to speak their minds.

Smotty is one of the fine ladies of Planet Ganja (we mentioned Mrs Fly in our review of Planet Ganja) who not only has plant advice to share, but also has a wonderful personality and style of posting. A couple weeks back Smotty posted her own personal homemade insecticidal soap recipe, and we found it inspiring. Here’s the complete description of the making of Smotty’s bug killing soap . . .

Smotty’s Homemade Insecticidal Soap

Since I actually have a quiet moment here I thought I’d share with you guys my recipe for my plant soap….if any of you are interested in making it I would be more than happy to walk you through it…..I admit making soap is another hobby of mine, and I have found it to be kind of addicting, just like gardening

I make a cold process soap from scratch….all true soap consists of 3 key elements: long-chain fatty acids such as oil or tallow, sodium or potassium hydroxide (lye) and water. Cold process is named as such because no cooking from a heat source is used. Instead, the lye and water mixture causes an exothermic reaction with the oil, which in turn allows saponification to occur. To make soap, you need a few pieces of equipment….

Equipment

-A scale that measures to within 1/10 of an ounce
-A stainless steel or enamel-plated pot or bowl
-A large plastic or a stainless steel spoon
-2 plastic drink pitchers
-Heavy-duty rubber gloves
-Goggles
-Either a corrugated cardboard box (like a shoe box) or a glass baking dish
-Small plastic trashcan liner

Ingredients

-35 ounces canola oil
-15 ounces neem oil
-20 ounces cold (NEVER warm or hot) water
-7 ounces potassium hydroxide (using potassium hydroxide as opposed to sodium hydroxide will result in a softer soap that is easier to mix into a spray form for foliar application)
-1/4 C epsom salt

Process

I suggest making soap outside as it allows fumes to dissipate and since lye is an extremely caustic substance it reduces the risk of contact with surfaces used by the people in your house….Lye will burn a hole in your happy ass so always be careful and if you’re doing this for the first time, for fuck sake don’t do it high!

-Before you do anything, put on your gloves and goggles!

-Place a pitcher on the scale, and take note of the weight of the empty pitcher.

-Add canola oil to the pitcher until your weight equals the weight of your pitcher plus 35 ounces.

-Add to the canola oil the neem oil until you reach the total weight of 15 ounces plus the canola oil and pitcher weight. Pour into mixing bowl and set aside.

-Place the other pitcher on the scale, and take note of the weight of the empty pitcher.

-Add to the pitcher the 20 ounces of COLD water (run the hose until it’s cold…this is the easiest way I have found to use outside).

-Add the epsom salt and stir with spoon until dissolved.

-Place pitcher back on the scale, again taking note of the weight. Add to this the potassium hydroxide until your total weight equals that of the pitcher plus 7 ounces.

-Add potassium hydroxide to the cold water mixture-NEVER add the water mixture to the lye. The exothermic reaction that is created can be very dangerous and give you severe chemical burns if you add water to the lye…..

-Stir with stainless or plastic spoon until the lye is dissolved.

-Add to the water and lye mixture the combined canola and neem oils…this is where the cool stuff starts to happen

You can use either a stainless hand blender (or beaters) or a slotted spoon for mixing this. The fats in this recipe are more liquid than solid at room temperature so I usually just use the spoon……..GO SLOWLY so you don’t get any backsplash. Remember that lye is a real bitch…

You will see that the mixture starts to turn opaque, this is what you want it to do
because it means that the alkaline is mixing with the oils and saponification is happening. Depending on what you use to mix, your mixing times will vary. This particular recipe usually takes me about 25 minutes by hand to start to trace. Tracing occurs when some of the mixture will “fall back” onto itself when dropped from the spoon. Another sign that trace is occurring is when the mixture holds the divisions created in the mixture from the actual mixing. The best think I can liken it’s consistency to is custard.

Now you are ready to pour your mixture into the container (either the corrugated box or glass baking dish) where it will complete it’s chemical reaction into actual soap. Line your container of choice with the plastic liner. We don’t care if the soap turns out looking pretty or formed into a cute little shape so don’t sweat it if the liner has wrinkles. Use the spatula to scrape any mixture from the sides of the bowl like you would cake batter. Fold the liner to cover the mixture and set someplace where it won’t be disturbed.

I let my soap cure for about 6 weeks. This gives ample time for the chemical process to finish and well-cured soap has a much better shelf life than uncured. After cure I tip the soap out and give it a little wiggle with a butterknife if need be but this soap should still be relatively soft and easy to cut. You can use a butterknife or a steel wire to divide the soap into the size you would normally see in a store-bought bar soap. You can store the individual bars in a tupperware container and it will keep very nicely.

Mixing Into Foliar Spray

I use a cheese grater and a blender for mixing into a foliar spray. Take a bar-sized amount and grate gently into the blender. I use 32 ounce plastic bottles so I fill it up about 3/4 of the way with distilled water and dump that into the blender. Pulse or blend at lowest setting until you get a milky mixture and there is no visible precipitate in the bottom of the blender. I then use a funnel to pour the mixture into the spray bottle and cap it up. You now have a homemade insecticidal/fungicidal treatment for anything in your garden, inside or out

Many folks find soap making to be an enjoyable hobby, and from there it was probably only a short jump to making a potassium insecticidal soap, but to our eyes the addition of Neem oil to the recipie is absolutely inspired! Smotty seems to be quite modest about the whole thing, but to our bird’s eye view, it looks to be a very promising and innovative homemade addition to organic pest control arsenal.

If anyone decides to try making insecticidal soap for their own garden, please please follow smotty’s advice about wearing goggles, and using appropriate caution when handling and working with very dangerous caustic materials like lye. As she quite appropriately stated, “Lye will burn a hole in your happy ass so always be careful and if you’re doing this for the first time, for fuck sake don’t do it high!”