As I said I use homemade natural insecticides for my plants. I prefer to use dashparni ark. Dash means ten (10), parni means leaves (patta) and ark means extracts. So the name of this insecticide tells us about its important ingredients. Yes, it is leaves collected from plants. What kind of leaves? Well, those are mainly bitter in taste or slightly poisonous. How will you know that what leaves you should use? It is said that leaves that cow & goat does not eat are suitable for preparing this dashparni ark. But surprisingly most of those leaves are available in my home garden. What are those? Okay, let’s talk about all ingredients that are available in my garden for preparing dashparni ark.
To get extracts from those leaves we need to ferment those leaves in water. To make the process we need to add microbes (bacteria & fungus) to the solution. Generally, cow dung & cow urine are used as natural sources of microbes. But being a home gardener I do not have those. So I prefer to add vermicompost which is fresh & not dry. Jaggery is used in the solution so that microbes can eat and multiply rapidly.
If you want to get the detailed recipes for all of my natural insecticides (dashparni ark, agniastra, neemastra & Brahmastra) that I use in my garden. Then check in this post.
Neem leaves
I have two neem trees grown in containers. I cut its leaves twice a year to make natural insecticides. Though I have another tree in the yard garden but those two trees are enough for this purpose.
Pomegranate leaves
I have three pomegranate trees which I am growing in containers. Those are now almost 3 years old. So I can get sufficient leaves every season for making dashparni ark.
Guava leaves
I have two guava trees in our yard garden. So there is always guava leaves available for my natural insecticide.
Aak/akondo leaves
Till a few months back there is a bush of aak plants in our neighbourhood. But now that bush is not there. So a few weeks earlier, I planted a aak (akondo) plant in a clay pot. This season I just used two leaves from that plant. But next season I will get enough leaves from this dashparni ark.
sahjan/sojne/drumstick/moringa leaves
Drumstick leaves contain various minerals. I do not know that whether cow or goat eat those or not. But moringa leaves & papaya leaves are often used to make a special fermented medicine to cure the various diseases of plants. That is why many people use it in dashparni ark.
curry leaves
It is another plant which leaves are very strong & flavorful. Cow/goat does not eat curry leaves. I have many plants of curry leaves in my garden. So I used it.
Tulsi leaves
Another plant whose leaves are useful to make this ark. I have a few tulsi plants which were grown itself in the garden. It has strong aroma, so I used it to make dashparni ark.
I could not find any other plant useful for making this ark. So I collected papaya leaves, custard apple leaves, lemongrass from the neighbourhood. Though a few years back, all those plants were in our garden. But those died one by one. But nothing to worries because I collected those from the neighbourhood.
Apart from those leaves, ginger paste, garlic paste & chilli paste are also added to this. Many people also add tobacco to this ark. But I did not add this time. I am preparing approx 5 litres of ark what I will use till next 6 months to grow various fresh & healthy vegetables and fruits.
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