Gardeners urged to sprinkle garlic on lawns

It's one of those ingredients you either love or hate when it comes to cooking - but garlic has a surprising use outside of the kitchen. Indeed, outside of the entire house.

Some gardeners swear by garlic powder as a way to control pests in their gardens all year round. The vegetable's pungent cloves, often used for seasoning food, are scientifically proven to deter pests in your garden. They're particularly effective at getting rid of slugs and aphids, two of the most stubborn and most damaging pests to try to control in your garden.

Slugs, as any gardener knows, will strip away almost anything that grows, including tomato, potato, raspberry and strawberry plants, their leaves and their fruit. Aphids, meanwhile, breed exponentially and drain the life from plants by sucking the nutrients from stalks, leaving strawberries, raspberries and other popular plants wilting as they run out of the things they need to grow and fruit.

According to The Garlic Farm, garlic can be turned into a garden spray that works against both of these common garden invaders.

It says: "We all love garlic for its unique flavour and ability to transform everything it's paired with - after all, what would garlic bread, pesto or spaghetti bolognese be without this key ingredient?! Garlic's legendary health attributes as a powerful antioxidant and mineral-rich food are also well documented.

"But its sulphurous compounds have another, less obvious but just as useful benefit: they can act as a natural repellent for many common insects. By harnessing this helpful side-effect, we can use garlic not only as an ingredient in our kitchens, but also in our medicine cabinets and gardening sheds.

"Use this simple garlic repellent to deter garden pests like aphids and slugs. It can also help eliminate powdery mildew on foliage."

It says you should peel the cloves of a whole garlic and blend it with 235ml of water. Then, puree it or chop the cloves finely by hand and mix well. Add another 700ml of water, 30ml of liquid soap, and then leave to rest overnight.

Once it's ready, strain it through a muslin cloth or mesh strainer, then spritz plants, lawns, and anywhere else that's being taken over by pests, in the evenings. Reapply every evening or after every rainfall and you might finally be rid of your pest infestations.