9 Ways to Use Baby Powder in Your Garden

If there’s one thing you know about us, it’s that we love a good multitasking tool, especially one we probably already have on hand anyway!

And today, we’re excited to find all kinds of uses for one we can nearly guarantee is hanging out under your bathroom sink as we speak: baby powder.

Whether you use it on your infant or on yourself, you probably have some— and you probably have a bit more than you really know what to do with! (After all, a little goes a long way!) So after discovering all the ways we can use it around the house, we started to wonder: could we use this toiletry outside?

Turns out, we can, and our gardens LOVE it. Check out all the ways below that baby powder can benefit your plants, and prepare to add it to your list of unexpected gardening helpers.

1. Avoid ants . . .

   Granted, ants aren’t the worst pest you can find in your garden, but every home gardener knows the more tempting your landscaping, the more likely the little working insects will find their way through it and into your home.

   Thankfully, baby powder can help! Just sprinkle some around your foundation, doorways, and other points of entry. Ants hate the stuff, and they’ll divert their path another way – and away from your house! – when they come across it. And even better . . .

2. AND aphids!

   . . . aphids will stay away, too! Also known as plant lice, greenflies, blackflies and whiteflies, these sap-sucking, plant-killing pests enjoy a mutualistic relationship with ants. That’s right— some species of ants protect and feed on aphids and the milk they produce, and even carry eggs from plant to plant. (Kind of creepy, right?)

   So if you want to keep the aphids away? Keep the ants away, too, by simply sprinkling some baby powder around the garden bed(s) where you’ve noticed them.

3. Banish beetles.

   plenty.r. via Flickr

   Baby powder’s pest powers aren’t limited to ants and their “pets.” Another common problematic garden insect hates the stuff just as much: the Japanese beetle! Use it to keep the leaf-destroyers from munching through your plants.

   How to do it? Just sprinkle some baby powder onto the leaves, and reapply after every rain until beetle season is over. The new taste will prevent the bugs from taking their usual meal, and your garden will thank you.