When I was in Boquete, Panama a friend I’d met there took me to visit a woman who produced the most luscious raspberries I’d ever seen. We visited her garden, and then went into her large kitchen where jellies, jams, and sauces were everywhere, ready for the marketplace. This is the way she kept her raspberries from being eaten by pesky-little creatures: She had a spray bottle, and in it was some soap (what kind of soap I don’t know), and in that bottle she also put hot spices. That made all the difference. I remembered the raspberry woman in Panama when I began clearing notes from a folder and read: “A spray to repel garden insects can be made from ground red pepper pods and water. It’s sprayed on the plants to keep pepper-hating insects at bay.”
from the book, HOT STUFF by Jessica B. Harris
This year I was forced to figure out how to keep a mouse at bay. I still shiver thinking about it. After researching, I went shopping for peppermint oil, whole cloves, ammonia, cayenne pepper flakes, and Bounce sheets. I used everything on the list. The Bounce sheets were placed here, there, and everywhere. I put whole cloves and cayenne pepper flakes in little cheesecloth-type bags and hung them here, there, and everywhere. Ammonia* and peppermint oil was poured on small cosmetic cotton pads and put into plastic caps and placed, well, you know where. Thankfully I was scheduled to leave for a week. I admit that I wasn’t too keen on returning because my imagination was entirely focused on a mouse dancing around my apartment after nibbling on chocolate.
*toxic – not recommended.
I wish I’d had the presence of mind to write down the website address whose owner so generously gave all that information. It worked! It worked! And whoever you are, thank you from the bottom of my scared-of-mice heart. How I wish I could say I wasn’t scared. I’m working on it though.
“Readers of the 1888 Farmer’s and Housekeeper’s Cyclopedia sprinkled cayenne pepper in nooks and crannies to keep ants away. This one really works; I’ve tried it with squirrels that took over a summer cottage.”
from the book, HOT STUFF by Jessica B. Harris
One more thing about cayene pepper: “More recently, a book on natural beauty cures published in the French West Indies suggested using red bird peppers to prevent hair from falling. Five of the small chiles are left to macerate in two cups of oil. The oil is then massaged into the scalp.”
from the book, HOT STUFF by Jessica B. Harris
David Wolfe writes about hot peppers and hair loss in his book, THE SUNFOOD DIET SUCCESS SYSTEM. He wrote that caution must be used when applying pepper oil to the scalp as it can burn if not done properly, and, of course, no one wants the experience of hot pepper oil in one’s eye. In the book that I have he explains the why of hair loss on pages 484-485.
www.sunfood.com
Do you agree that we live in a fascinating world?