How to cook and how to use garden pitch at home

In gardening, quite a lot of various compositions are used to care for plants, but one of the places of honor belongs to a kind of medicinal mixture for the garden’s “inhabitants” - garden pitch, which, by the way, is easy to prepare with your own hands. How this can be done and how to use the ready-made mixture later - read on.

Description and Purpose

Before we go on to describe the process of creating the specified drug mixture, let's find out what it is. Garden pitch was called a volatile substance that does not dissolve in water and due to this it keeps well on damaged parts of the tree, contributing to its more rapid recovery. It is able to protect the vulnerable place of the plant from damage by parasites, to block the path of insects, fungi and bacteria, at the same time preventing the loss of tree.

Not surprisingly, such opportunities have led to the use of the composition described for the treatment of wounds after cutting branches,thermal damage to the bark and wood (for example, resulting from prolonged sun exposure), as well as restoring the plant after other mechanical injuries received.

That is, all the wounds that appear on the trunks can be divided into several types:

• damage resulting from trimming a plant or removing a part of the trunk;
• damage caused by wounds on a certain part of a plant or a whole circle of bark and wood;
• places of cracks and faults from broken branches;
• deep wounds in the form of a hollow.

Of course, in each of these cases, a different composition of the garden war will be needed, and the process of damage treatment will take a long time.

During the processing of wood, over time, you will notice how the callus ring is formed, which looks like a scar.

It appears already in the first summer after the use of the garden pitch, and every year more and more increases in size until the wound is completely healed.

The cambium cells that make up the callus ring heal the damaged part of the wood.

Many gardeners prefer purchase of putty for trees (for example, Petrolatum), but you can make a good mix with your own hands.

The most common ingredients of the garden pitch are rosin, wax and fat, although one should not exclude the possibility of making the so-called "cold putty", which involves the use of alcohol. The properties of the fat exclude the possibility of cracking the lubricant, the wax gives the cook almost complete resistance to various external influences and prevents the mixture from flowing off the tree.

Rosin adds a certain tackiness to adhesion to the surface, and alcohol makes the mixture more practical during the cold season.

Purchased funds

In modern stores it is easy to find a ready remedy for the treatment of injuries on different parts of the tree. The most common variants of such compositions include "Garden Var" and its varieties such as "Bees", "Garden var of Bugorkov", putty "BlagoSad" and garden paste "RanNet". You can also buy "Glue Entomological Garden", which is also often used in the treatment of injuries on wood, but what to choose and what composition to entrust your plants - every gardener must decide for himself.

Most of the mixtures really well seal the wounds, but you should always remember about the popular recipes tested by time.

There is an opinion that they heal wounds much faster and prevent the appearance of parasites, moreover, when you create a viscous mixture yourself, you can be sure that there are no harmful chemical impurities in it.

Garden DIY (recipes)

Among a large number of the most diverse recipes of home-made garden pitch, mixtures based on paraffin, beeswax and alcohol stand out in particular, and we will now tell you how to create them and how to use them correctly.

On paraffin

When melted, paraffin, in combination with other fats, has excellent lubricating properties, and given its availability, it is not surprising that many recipes involve the use of this substance.

For example, to prepare a good putty for six parts of paraffin, you need to take three parts of rosin and two parts of any oil (vegetable or mineral origin).The paraffin is melted in a water bath, and then dust of rosin is added to the container, of course, to obtain it, you must first grind the substance into a powder.

The mixture allows to boil and gradually introduce oil into it, stirring well for 10-30 minutes. The finished composition is left to cool, and then knead until smooth. The drug is allowed to infuse, tightly covering the container for 10 minutes, and then used for its intended purpose. Instead of vegetable oil, nigrol or natural linseed oil (all in equal proportions) can be added to paraffin and rosin. These ingredients need to be melted in separate dishes, and then pour the rest of the future vara into hot nigrol.

Mix the mixture well and heat it well again. In addition, wood ash (pre-sifted) is often added to the hot gear oil (nigrol) and stirred to the consistency of sour cream.

Before direct processing, the mixture must be reheated and mixed again. Such a garden pitch is great for handling big damages.

On wax

Putty made on the basis of beeswax (4 parts), with the addition of 20 parts of resin and rosin (10 parts), also has good healing properties. Mixing these ingredients, you need to pour in them another part of flax oil, and after removing the pitch from the heat, add into the mixture two more pieces of ground charcoal.

According to another well-known recipe, two parts of wax should be four parts of rosin and one part of natural fat. The wax should be melted and boiled, and the remaining components should be added alternately, according to the proportions indicated.

The mixture should be on a moderate fire for no more than half an hour, and then it is cooled and kneaded to a uniform state.

Having at your disposal beeswax, you can prepare the specified putty and other recipes. For example, to create a useful mixture, according to the recommendations of Zhukovsky, in equal proportions take wax, rosin, unsalted fat and melt all the ingredients in separate dishes.When they all take on a liquid form, they need to be mixed together. A little of the present mixture is slowly poured into another vessel with cold water, and as soon as the garden pitch is rolled up, it is taken out and rolled into a bowl.

To store the putty, it is placed in oiled paper and is used only in case of suitable weather: warm and rainless.

In addition to wax, propolis, turpentine, rosin and even lard can be used, and in any case, garden var will have similar properties with identical instructions for use.

On alcohol

If trees need your help during the cold season, then putty on alcohol will come to the rescue. Based on their capabilities, each gardener independently selects the most suitable recipe for himself, and there are many of them. For example, you can take one part of melted lard (lean) and sixteen parts of finely ground rosin into eight parts of alcohol. Alcohol is added to the other ingredients when they turn into a homogeneous liquid.

Garden varieties obtained from this recipe are stored in sealed packaging.

A good option for such a drug is Reshetnikov ointment. To create it, add the same amount of yellow wax and ten parts of fir resin to one part of the wine spirit.

As soon as the wax and resin (they must be in different metal dishes) are completely melted, they are mixed together and left on a small fire, continuing to stir, so as not to form lumps.

After the mixture is slightly cooled, alcohol is added to it. Garden putty Goug. For 60 ml of medical alcohol you need to take 400 g of resin from pine, 1 small spoonful of regular baking soda and 4 g of gum. The resin is placed in a metal dish and put on the fire to heat up, over time adding alcohol to it.

Gum and soda need to dissolve in a small amount of water and pour into a pot of resin, thoroughly mixing all the ingredients. After the garden water cools down, it remains only to prepare a brush and treat the damaged areas of the tree.

Recipe Rajewski.In this case, you will need: 60 ml of alcohol, 0.5 kg of wood resin and 2 large spoons (table) of linseed oil.

To the melted on a low heat resin, you need to add linseed oil and alcohol, and as soon as the heat cools, it is poured into a metal can for storage, of course, if you do not need it yet.

How to use putty

Now you know how to make garden pitch at home and what is required for this, it remains only to carefully study the method of applying the obtained composition.

Of course, an individual instruction for using each recipe simply does not exist, but it is not needed, since all actions are performed according to the same scenario.

It is only important to remember that it is possible to apply cooked varieties only on a healthy part of the tree, and the dead, rotten or infected parts of the bark are removed before it is used.

All further actions are performed in the following order:

• the base of the wound and its edges must be well cleaned, so that they become completely smooth, without any growths and protuberances;
• rinse well with damage water and wash all the tools that will be used to complete the task;

• if necessary, clean the hollow of the tree, while not forgetting to treat it with a 5% solution of copper sulphate (this alcohol solution is also used to disinfect inventory);
• If the plant additionally requires treatment for nectria or cytosporosis, then all affected areas need to be applied 2% solution of copper sulphate and 5% iron.

With a small lesion area, an ordinary paint brush is perfect for applying the composition, but to eliminate larger "injuries" you will have to use a roller or spatula, which will help to evenly cover the damaged area with a mixture.

Contrary to the opinion of some gardeners, the spray gun (or sprayer) is completely unsuitable for these purposes, since the solution is spent much more, and the consistency of the garden pitch is not sufficiently liquid.

At the end of the procedure, an antiseptic can be applied to the damage, of course, if you have not added it to the prepared mixture. Remember: when applying a garden vara, the main thing is not the thickness of the coating, but its uniform distribution.

Advantages and disadvantages

At first glance it may seem that the use of the described composition may not have any drawbacks, but this is not entirely true.

If the advantages of such a “drug” include the ease of preparation and application, as well as the strength of the connection with wood (thanks to which it does not fall on clothes or hands, soiling them) and the ability to retain moisture for a long time (wounds do not dry out), then there are no minuses less:

• large damages (wide wounds and cuts) dry for a long time after treatment, which can lead to rotting of the wood;
• Most of the frequently used mixtures are suitable for use only in the warm season, and at lower temperatures, they thicken and are difficult to apply;
• cheap mixture, and even with chemical impurities (more typical of finished industrial products) at high temperatures begins to melt quickly, because of which the tree can get a serious burn.

Of course, if we compare the benefits and the possible difficulties, it is better to use the garden pitch for its intended purpose, and to minimize the possible harm from the chemical components, just follow the correct dosage of all the components.