I use orange oil (though a diffusion of citrus rinds would work too) mixed with water as a fire ant repeller. I rub it on my feet and legs and shoes before going into the garden. Orange oil kills many insects and most insects avoid it. It's a great mosquito repeller, too. I'd be cautious about spraying a mixture on plants, since it can burn the plant. The recommendation is to spray ONE leaf to test it first, probably a good idea for any home-made plant treatment.

To be honest, I have used whatever kind of liquid dish washing soap/detergent I have on hand. We try to get Ivory dish soap just because hubby is allergic to a lot of other brands, but couldn't find it last time and the cheap stuff from Aldi works just fine. Have always had this solution work on killing bugs, and have never damaged my plants with it at the killing-bugs dilution rate. (If you double the amount of dish soap it does hurt plants, can be used to kill small weeds.) I go with about 1 Tablespoon of dish soap per quart of water in a spray bottle. I also have Murphy's Oil Soap but didn't know that I could use that, besides it is kind of pricey. I used to use this spray on some kind of worms that attacked the pine trees at my previous home almost every year, and on ants and aphids. At my current house I have used them on ants, cucumber beetles, and Mexican bean beetles/bugs in the garden. It works, and you can just spray/soak the area afterwards to get most of the soap out. No aphid problems here since I have so many lady bugs. I also don't see how a $1 bottle of dish soap that makes gazillions of quarts of bug spray (and can also be used for dish soap) doesn't blow away ANY prepared commercial product economically. Yes, I imagine you could hurt some plants if you were careless, but all you have to do is wash the plant off afterward with water anyway, so what is the big deal? I even rescue the worms I find in that area and wash them off with water, too. Marcia

First I recommend using a mixture of jelly or jam with Boric Acid (can be purchased in most grocery stores for about $2.00) roll it into little pea sized balls and leave around plant base(s) the ants will be attracted to the food source and when they take it back to their hill it will alleviate your ant problem completely. Another solution I found from the link below which has many natural homemade insect repellent recipes. However I do not know if they will repel the butterflies as well. Black pepper, chili pepper, dill, ginger, paprika, and red pepper all contain capsaicin, a compound shown to repel insects. Synthetic capsaicin is also available for feild use. Researchers have found that as little as 1/25 ounce of capsaicin sprinkled around an onion plant reduced the number of onion maggot eggs laid around the plant by 75%, compared to a control plant. * Protection Offered: Capsaicin-containing dusts repel onion maggots from seedlings, as well as other root maggot flies from cabbage family plants and carrots. Pepper dusts around the base of the plants help repel ants, which is desirable in a garden where ants often protect and maintain aphid colonies on plants. * How To Make: It can be rather expensive to buy enough packaged pepper dusts to sprinkle throughout your garden. However, if you grow and dry your own red peppers, chili peppers, or dill, you can make lots of dust at low cost. Use a mortar and pestle to grind the peppers, or dill, including the seeds, to dust. Be careful handling the hot peppers because they irritate sensitive skin. * How to Use: Sprinkle along seeded rows of onions, cabbage, or carrots, in a band at least 6 inches wider than the row or planting bed. A fine sprinkling will suffice, but the more dust you use, the better the effect. Renew after a heavy rain or irrigation. To protect plants from ants, sprinkle around the base of plants in an area as wide as the widest leaves. Here is a link that might be useful: Homemade insect repellent recipes

First you really need to identify what is doing this. Second you need to determine if the damage is too much for the plant, most all plants can live with some holes in the leaves. Third if there is a need to control what is causing the problem find the least toxic control you can. Fourth with due care for the rest of the environment apply that control. Fifth reevaluate what you did. There are many things that could cause holes in plant leaves, from cutter bees to sawfly larva and what to do depends on what it is.