Natural Fly Repellent

When we moved to our little homestead, we didn’t even have any animals yet. But, we had plenty of flies.

There aren’t enough fly swatters and Venus fly traps in the world for the number of flies our homestead sees in one season. Bring in the animals… it’s even worse than it was before :(.

I’m not giving up my animals, though. And I’m certainly not spraying a harmful chemical spray all over them, myself, my fresh eggs, and raw milk. Ain’t gonna happen.

We strive to treat our animals as naturally as possible and keeping the flies away is no different. So, I went on a mission to find a way to make my own natural fly repellent.

I really wanted to create an herbal fly repellent that I could just make using stuff I grew right here on our homestead.

And, I found it. Finally. In fact, I grow specific herbs on our homestead to make a lot of our natural remedies, sprays, soaps, and lotions. This natural fly repellent is no different.

And it’s super easy to make. The ingredients are things that most of us have growing right on our own properties. And even if we don’t have them growing on the property, they’re all really easy to grow. A beginner could grow any of these herbs no problem. Even if you don’t have all of these herbs, I bet you have a substitute. There are actually a ton of herbs you can utilize to repel just about any kind of bug.

I recommend using fresh herbs for this repellent, too. The dried ones just aren’t as potent. And if you want to keep the pesky flies away, you want this stuff to be as potent as possible.

Natural Fly Repellent

Ingredients

• Basil
• Peppermint
• Lemongrass
• 1 Cup Water
• 1 Cup Apple Cider Vinegar
• 2 Cups Witch Hazel or Rubbing Alcohol

Directions

Crush your herbs. Begin by crushing up your fresh herbs a bit. I usually just use my mortar and pestle for this. You’ll want to add about 1/3 cup of herbs total to this mixture.

Make an herbal tea. Now, add a cup of water to a pan with your herbs. Cover and bring to a low boil. Once it reaches a low boil, remove it from heat and keep it covered.

Allow the tea to cool. Go ahead and let it sit a good long while and get all the way down to room temp. It will smell amazing, just let it alone, covered, and let it cool.

Strain the herbs. Once everything has cooled off, strain the tea off by using a piece of cheesecloth. Pour the tea into any container, it doesn’t matter. Then, you can transfer it to a glass jar you can affix a spray nozzle. Believe it or not, those glass apple cider vinegar jars work really well and the spray nozzles will fit right over them.

Add the apple cider vinegar and witch hazel. You can add 1 cup of apple cider vinegar and 2 cups of witch hazel to the bottle with your tea in it. Shake well to mix everything up well.

Spray liberally. This stuff won’t hurt you, or your animals. So, spray liberally. You’ll have to apply it often, once a day, unlike chemical sprays. But, totally worth it to not spray the chemicals all over yourself, your animals, and your farm goods.

That’s it. Super simple, readily available from right here on the homestead, natural, and effective. While you’ll have to apply it more often than you do the chemical sprays, it’s worth the hassle, trust me.

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