DIY Recipes for Gardeners: Make Your Own Pest Control Spray and Soil Mix

A successful garden always starts with the soil. How and what you feed your soil will determine how well your plants grow. Feeding your soil isn't rocket science — it's actually easy once you know the recipe. Garden Therapy founder Stephanie Rose shows you how to make your own organic garden essentials in her latest book, Garden Alchemy: 80 Recipes and Concoctions for Organic Fertilizers, Plant Elixirs, Potting Mixes, Pest Deterrents, and More.

Garden writer Stephanie's foray into gardening began in 2006. Stephanie came down with a debilitating illness from which her recovery took almost 10 years. "I used gardening to rehabilitate my body and my mind; a process that took many years but changed my life for the better," she explains. During those years, Stephanie studied organic gardening, permaculture and herbalism. "I nerded out on soil science and then tested the concepts to see how they performed," says Stephanie. "The results allowed me to repair sick landscapes into low-maintenance, thriving gardens many times over."

"I've always been a DIY gardener,” Stephanie says. She shares her garden knowledge on her popular blog, Garden Therapy. In Garden Alchemy Stephanie brings together the concepts of soil science and regenerative gardening into easy and accessible DIY projects that anyone can do in their garden. "My hope is that readers will realize that it takes less work, less effort and less money to work with nature," Stephanie says.

Alchemy is an ancient branch of natural philosophy that focused on the transformation of base metals into gold, discovering a cure for disease and a way to extend life. “When I give my garden talks, I often make the same comparison to gardeners and alchemists,” Stephanie explains. “They experimented and observed the natural world to learn how it worked and learned a lot.”