Yep, also had white flies very bad around my tomatoes - but the peppers seemed to be fine. I didn't do any kind of treatment on them - but I did lose some tomatoes - although I don't believe it was from the white flies - but more so the stink bugs and a fungus that makes small black spots then grow larger (can't remember the name now). Next year I may try just using some soap and water on some of the plants as a "organic" method of control to see if that makes any kind of difference with the pests. Here is a link that might be useful: BsnTech Gardening Blog

Hi Nikkismom, Your burned your plant foliage when you sprayed it with a detergent spray (more about soap vs. detergent in a moment) as is readily apparent from the burned foliage. I am guessing that by the time you hosed off the spray residue with the hose, the damage to the foliage already had been done. Have you killed it? Well, I won't say you killed it but the plant obviously is severely damaged. If it were my plant, I'd move it into the shade for 2-4 days to give it some time to recover without being in direct sun. I'd carefully clip off all the severely damaged foliage, but would take great care to save every halfway-healthy leaf. The more healthy leaves it still has after you clip off the badly damaged ones, the better the chances are that it will recover. Keep the soil moist but not sopping wet and don't feed the plant for the next week or two. Just let it focus on recovering. After just a few days you'll either see new growth coming out or you won't, and that will tell you if the plant is going to recover or if it won't. Using soap sprays can be tricky and there's a couple of reasons why. I generally only use commercially-produced soap sprays---I don't use soap sprays often, but if I feel compelled to use one, I prefer to use the Safer brand, which is easily found on store shelves. Mixing up your own soap spray is risky because one mis-step in the formulation and you have created a spray that can kill your plants or at least harm them severely. The active ingredient in true soap sprays is potassium salts of fatty acid, and that is the ingredient that kills some insects. If you absolutely must mix up your own soap spray, be sure you purchase and use a soap, not a detergent. Some of the true soaps generally found on store shelves are Murphy's Oil Soap, Ivory, and Fels Naptha. Be sure you do not mix up too strong of a formulation because while soaps at a low concentration are pesticides, at a slightly higher concentration they are herbicides. You also can use a castile soap like any of the soaps in the Dr. Bronner's line, but even these products have additives I'd rather not spray on my garden plants. I do use Dr. Bronner's Peppermint soap, for example, to deter ants and make them move a pathway if they are continually trying to walk through an area (like their one-time trail right beside our outdoor water faucet) where we also walk. By spraying their path with peppermint soap, I encouraged them to move it elsewhere and then we no longer had to deal with having red ants biting us when we were hooking up the water hose to the faucet. I wouldn't spray that Peppermint soap spray on my plants though. You stated that you used a dish detergent. Detergent is not soap and soap is not detergent. You never want to spray detergent on desirable garden plants because detergents are made of petroleum by-products and petroleum by-products are not good for plants. I realize that you can Google and find about a million and one recommendations to spray plants with Dawn dish detergent, but I'd never, ever use a detergent on plants because it can harm them. Just because you find something recommended on the internet, that doesn't necessarily mean you should do it! Dawn dish detergent contains degreasers, which are great for washing greasy pots and plants, but are not something you want to spray on plants. The whole soap spray issue is further complicated for those of us who live in very hot climates with intense sunlight. I don't even use Safer insecticidal soap when the temperatures are over 90 degrees, and we spend most of the summer at temperatures over 90 degrees. Even a commercial soap formulation can damage plant foliage when used during hot weather or in intense sunlight. If I felt I had a pest that absolutely, positively needed to be sprayed with a soap spray in the summer months, I'd (a) used a purchased commercial spray and use it following label directions, (b) spray in the evening near sunset, (c) leave it on the plant for only a few minutes, and then (d) hose all of it off the plants thoroughly before I went inside. The insecticidal soaps only kill the insects they directly hit, so there is no reason to leave the spray on the plants for longer than the few minutes needed. You're certainly not the first person to hurt or kill plants using homemade insecticidal soap and you won't be the last. So, I'd chalk this one up as a "Lesson Learned" and try to avoid repeating it again. I know some folks who have literally killed their entire gardens by spraying with a homemade insecticidal soap spray from a recipe that they got off the internet. It all goes back to soap sprays being pesticides when you have a very low % of soap in the spray and a herbicide if you have a higher % of soap in the spray. Using detergent instead of soap is another common error, as is spraying during high temperatures or intense sunlight. So, roll all those up into a bundle and you just learned a valuable lesson about what not to do. Good luck with your plant. I hope it recovers. Dawn

Seedlings are more tender than mature plants and I don't know if they can take insecticidal soap (which cuts down whiteflies pretty good). Try it on a few seedlings and see if they're ok after a week. In my experience (limtied as it may be) whiteflies tend to congregate on their most favored plants first and tomatoes are among their most favored. That means keep an eye on the eggplant and peppers as well. I have noticed that the first place they fly to when disturbed are fluorescent lights or a nearby window. Have a vacuum ready for them. tj

Here is a picture that shows the worms I've been finding as well (top part of the leaf)