white flies (tomatoes)... how do I get rid of them?

[aimeesh]

hi, this is my first season gardening. I'm doing a bit of container gardening without much success, and today I found out WHAT white flies are, and found them on both of my two tomato plants. I also have rot on one of them. I had two tomatoes on one of the plants, one green and one turning red... the one that had turned red I realized the bottom 1/3 of it was rotten, brown and dried out.

needless to say I was very disappointed.

so my main question for this section of the forum is, how do I deal with the white flies? I don't want to use any poison and I want to stay organic, a large reason why I decided to grow my own food in the first place.

I'd also like any advice on the rot and how to prevent that.

thank you!!

[rainbowgardener]

I responded to your white fly question elsewhere.

The bottom part of the tomato rotting sounds like Blossom End Rot

It looks something like this:

[img]https://www.humeseeds.com/blsm_end_rot.jpg[/img]

There's a Sticky about Blossom End Rot near the top of the Tomato Forum.

[aimeesh]

yep! thank you. I got some plant food that claims to treat that specifically on the front of the bag and is also organic. Thanks for the help

[Dillbert]

>>claims to treat

save your money.

blossom end rot results from a specific combination of temperature, moisture and soil minerals. it happens at the time of pollination. it most frequently happens very early in the season and goes away all by itself. some varieties are more prone to blossom end rot, which, btw, is not a "rot"

once the blossom is pollinated, there is no treatment - the fruit will develop with the leathery bottom - which is, btw, the "blossom end" - no matter what you put on the plant or in the soil.

"treatments" are completely worthless - blooms a week later will not be affected, for example. some years it's worse than others - weather aka "temperatures" plays a role.

[aimeesh]

oh, good to know! so what are the right conditions to prevent it? I now know it's caused by the wrong conditions but I don't know what the right ones are so much to learn and I really appreciate your help and finding this board!

[cynthia_h]

Read the [url=https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25876]Sticky[/url] referred to; it's quite detailed.

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9