Hi everyone, So glad I've found this forum as it looks very useful. A bit about me before I ask my questions: I'm near Ottawa and grow a bit of everything, citruses, orchids, vegetables, fruits, flowers, native plants, roses, etc. I've been at this for about 40 years. I have a pest concern with white flies that have recently invaded most of my vegetable garden, especially the tomatoes, and has spread to some of my nearby flower beds. Even though it is getting a bit late in the season to start, I've been spraying twice a week with Safer insecticidal soap, lots of the flies disperse and fly away and come back, and it is almost impossible to spray under the leaves as well, so I figure I should have started a bit earlier when the plants were smaller, that's probably what you are thinking. Which brings me to next gardening season - what can I do to avoid this happening again next year? I wish to use the organic, bio approach. I've never had as much of an issue with white flies over all the years I have been gardening. I have a pesticide license so I have access to some bio pesticides available commercially if needed, but still prefer the approach of using soaps, neem oil, etc. Thanks in advance, Regards, Rob
Thank you for the reference. Interesting that they don't like reflective mulches. I plan on sticking to soaps and oils. I'll start monitoring early next year and start applying these when plants are much smaller and as needed.
It's good to be prepared but perhaps you won't have a problem with them next year. After all, one difficult year out of 40 is a pretty good record.
They seem to be establishing themselves. Last year I had them in my temporary greenhouse at one end of the vegetable garden. This year in the same greenhouse again that I have up between April and June for early vegetables and this season they have spread to the rest of the garden. Maybe they were there in the past seasons but in much lower numbers so was not really noticing them. So by the looks of it I'll need to nip them in the bud by breaking their cycle early next spring when I see the first signs of them.