For some reason the original links diddn't work. Hopefully these will

You know, I don't ever seem to get aphids on my tomatoes, even when they are on an eggplant in the same box, for example. I cut off my eggplant at the soil line and pitched it today. I had gotten rid of the little buggers, but today I saw they are back.

I feel your pain, I burned a box of tomatoes with fertilizer my first year. I'm thinking that even if you hosed down the tomatoes thoroughly, the soap would still be in the surrounding soil and might burn the roots. Does anyone else have an opinion on that? If that isn't going to be a problem, you might try cutting off the worst branches, and see what comes up in new growth. If you've been pinching back the suckers, you could stop doing that and see if they come out nicely.

msaunt

It is sweet irony.LOL. It's looking worse everyday. My wife says that she prunes her dead leaves from her house plants and I'm thinking I going to prune the yellow leaves at least. I'm just afraid that blight might move in on this weakened plant and ruin my tomato garden this year again. Another option, I guess, would be to remove the plant to prevent this. I just don't have much experence with gardening to know what is the best option at this point. I really want those tomatoes! Irony and conflict, who knew gardening could be so fun?

If it was me I would Pull the leaves that are beyond hope, rinse the rest of the plant with a pan underneath the plant to catch some of the rinse water, then flood the soil to drive the rinsed soap deep down and diluted.

Especially if I thought the plant had poor chances of good prodution without help.

just me

d

Step away from the maters. Hose them off, and go back to your normal way of tending for them. Dont over water, under water, or to much fert, they will survive if you dont kill them fixing em.
Plant em if you got em.
Sam

Bigrich, I'm also fairly new to gardening,so anything I would say should probably be taken with a grain of salt .(LOL) I recently found bugs all over my bush beans so I sprayed with insecticidal soap. Within a day or so of hot,sunny weather ,I noticed nasty browning on some leaves. I trimmed off some of the leaves and gave the area a good soaking. The plants are looking much better now and are blooming. I am wondering if the brown leaves could have been caused by a combination of the soap and the heat of the sun. I don't know the situation in which you sprayed but I wish you the best.

Well then that is what I'll do. Hose it off. Trim the lost-forever leaves and leave it the heck alone. In fact I'm going to leave the garden as a whole alone! Everything is doing great and I'm finding myself "messing/fiddling" with things far too much to do any good. This is just a perfect, although extreme, example. Thanks for the ideas.

On a side note: I applied the killer dish liquid solution at dusk. I used 2 TBS per 16oz of water... Far too much. I reread the recipe and it stated 2 tbs in 16oz water, then 2 TBS of that mixture in 16oz of water. Live and learn. But in my defense I first reached for the sevin but thankfully realized that I might kill all the bees pollinating my plants.

Again thank you all.

Bigrich, I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who messes and fiddles too much with things in the garden. I think it is only normal for those of us who are new at this to want to learn all we can and fear we are not doing enough. I don't like to use Sevin but have been told that if you use the spray and use it late evenings that it will be dry by morning when the bees are out. (?) I'm sure many people will like hearing how your tomatoes turn out. Good luck. unc

I was worried I might get some in the blooms and have read that it can wipe out entire colonies(takes couple days to kill the offending bee). I'm learning to be a more "organic" gardener, for better or for worse. I kinda feel a little OCD'd at times though checking the garden twice a day for blight and such. But it's fun.