HELP! I made a mistake, need advice please

9 years ago

Hello,

I am doing organic gardening and I am growing tomatoes for the first time.

Now I made mix of vinegar and soap (undilluted) and put this into a small container for the purpose of attracting aphids and such as I have found it kills them.

However one of my containers that contains this solution has spilled into the soil very close to my tomatoes plants ( 4 or so inches). The amount that has spilled is about 8 or 9 tablespoons.

Will this damage my tomato plants that I have worked so hard to grow over the last 7 weeks? Should I dig them up, dump the soil, and re-pot them?

Or will it be ok?

Thanks in advance!

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Comments (6)

labradors_gw
9 years ago
I think your tomato plant will be ok, but you could always dilute the vinegar by pouring a whole lot of water over the area.

Linda
paulwalsh
Original Author
9 years ago
Thank you.

Will the seedlings that are a week old be ok too or am I to consider these written off?

The vinegar was very close to them and went directly on top of some seeds too.
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Ohiofem 6a/5b Southwest Ohio
9 years ago
I would water -- flood -- the area heavily. Undiluted vinegar is an herbicide, and detergent soap is almost as bad. As for aphids, why would you want to attract them? There are better and safer ways to deal with them, like just spraying with a sharp stream of water. And, unless you have a heavy infestation, they don't do much harm to a tomato plant.

Please be careful following so called home-grown recipes for organic growing, like spraying with oil and soap or mulching with coffee grounds and such. The best organic practice for new gardeners is to just watch and wait and learn. You can do more harm than good with many of thes practices.
paulwalsh
Original Author
9 years ago
Hi Ohiofem,

Thank you, I will flood the area with lots of water as suggested.

As for the aphids I was trying to attract them to the vinegar which kills them.

Should I flood the area and then repot them in fresh soil or is that taking things too far?

Yeah, I am learning the hard way not to take home recipes too literally, but thanks for the heads up!
digdirt2
9 years ago
As for the aphids I was trying to attract them to the vinegar which kills them.

And that is the primary mis-understanding. You never want to attract them to anything for any reason. They may or may not come all on their own and if they don't why attract them. Plus plain water can kill them too without any risk to the plants.

So please get rid of these vinegar and soap containers from near your plants. They pose much more of a threat than even aphids do.

While flooding the area will dilute the soap and vinegar it will also flood the plant roots. Since they are only a week old I'd probably move them to an uncontaminated spot.

As for seeds it may have contacted, I'd plan on having to re-seed once the area has been flushed out well.

Dave
paulwalsh
Original Author
9 years ago
@ digdirt

Thank you very much!

Yeah, got rid of all the vinegar containers, and I didnt actually know "just water" would kill them. Now I know thanks to you!

I flushed the area well with water and its all leaking out, which is what we want!

Going to home depot and will buy more soil and repot the big plants just to be on the safe side. Dont want all my hard work going to waste.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions and help.
Will let you know how I get on.

HELP! I made a mistake, need advice please

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HELP! I made a mistake, need advice please

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