White Flies

[Rogue11]

I noticed white flies on several of my plants including tomatoes and cucumbers. Is there a good, organic way to get rid of them?

[rainbowgardener]

One simple and very low impact way is just to vacuum them off your plants. Otherwise insecticidal soap works. There are commercial ones like Safer, or you can just make a soap (not detergent) solution and spray it on them.

[hendi_alex]

I got white flies on my tomato plants in the greenhouse a couple of seasons ago. The critters are very persistent and from what I've read are also pesticide resistant because of pesticide use on them in commercial greenhouses. I've never really had a problem with them outside of the greenhouse thank goodness. Nothing I used on them worked in the greenhouse, and they only left after I removed the plants of interest and the greenhouse got over 90 degrees . They have not been a problem since but have not attempted any more winter tomatoes other than early starts for transplanting.

[JONA878]

There is a very tiny parasitic wasp that you can buy that growers use in glasshouses to control the pest. It's no good on ornamentals as the looks of the plant are spoilt by the tiny black dots where the wasp has infected the eggs of the whitefly.
On food crops you don't have to worry about such things.
It comes in small tubes or cardbourd strips with the eggs of the wasp inside. and is just hung up in the greenhouse.
The wasp is Incarsia Formosa.

As RBG says though...a vacuum cleaner will get rid of them if you shake the plants and suck up the adults as they fly around.
You have to repeat over ten days as this is the life cycle of the creature from egg to adult.