For the past couple days I have noticed a lot of little red bugs on the leaves and stems of my tomato plants. They are the same size of a small fruit nat except they are red. I have sprayed the plants with liquid seven spray on all the tomato plants.
Did I do wrong? what kind of pest do I have? Is there anything else that I can do? I am going to try to post a picture as soon as I can.
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rustyboltz
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applestar
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First of all, don’t use Sevin — nasty stuff.
It would just as effective to spray many pest bugs with a little soapy water made with soap you would use to wash your face. This will suffocate them, and as the solution evaporates, dry them up.
And strong spray of plain water would dislodge them as well. This way you won’t accidentally kill beneficial insects or kill beneficial microbes and soil organisms like earthworms.
If they were kind of translucent and teardrop shaped pinkish brick red, they were likely tomato aphids. Yes, do Post the picture and we can verify.
It would just as effective to spray many pest bugs with a little soapy water made with soap you would use to wash your face. This will suffocate them, and as the solution evaporates, dry them up.
And strong spray of plain water would dislodge them as well. This way you won’t accidentally kill beneficial insects or kill beneficial microbes and soil organisms like earthworms.
If they were kind of translucent and teardrop shaped pinkish brick red, they were likely tomato aphids. Yes, do Post the picture and we can verify.
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rainbowgardener
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Wow! Using a cannon to kill a mosquito. Soft bodied insects like aphids are susceptible to soapy water and to diatomaceous earth, both completely harmless in your garden.
Here's some info about Sevin: viewtopic.php?p=329510#p329510
the summary is that it is only mildly harmful to human beings. Unless you are an agricultural worker exposed to it all the time, it is likely only to cause skin and eye irritation (wear gloves and goggles!). BUT it is severely toxic to fish, shrimp, crabs, and many other aquatic organisms. It is toxic to earthworms. It is a broad spectrum pesticide that kills pretty much every insect in your garden, including honey bees and other beneficial insects. It is somewhat toxic to birds and also harms them by killing off the things they eat. Sevin is reputed to be safe for pets and has been used on dogs to kill fleas. But there are reports of dogs that ate it having acute poisoning symptoms and being very sick.
Here's some info about Sevin: viewtopic.php?p=329510#p329510
the summary is that it is only mildly harmful to human beings. Unless you are an agricultural worker exposed to it all the time, it is likely only to cause skin and eye irritation (wear gloves and goggles!). BUT it is severely toxic to fish, shrimp, crabs, and many other aquatic organisms. It is toxic to earthworms. It is a broad spectrum pesticide that kills pretty much every insect in your garden, including honey bees and other beneficial insects. It is somewhat toxic to birds and also harms them by killing off the things they eat. Sevin is reputed to be safe for pets and has been used on dogs to kill fleas. But there are reports of dogs that ate it having acute poisoning symptoms and being very sick.
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Gary350
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I have very good luck blasting bugs off my tomato plants with the garden water hose. I was told those tiny red bugs are chiggers but not sure that is true. Those bugs have such tiny legs I figure those tiny bugs will never return to the tomato plants once water hose blasts them 25 ft across the garden. I blast every tomato plant with water about 5 to 7 seconds every evening bugs are gone. For those tiny bugs to walk back to the tomato plants garden soil would be like hiking over the Rocky Mountains. When tomato plants start looking bad in 90+ degree heat I start spraying plants with water 7 seconds in a few days they start looking much better. This has been an exceptionally good year for bugs, no bugs, but we never have much of a bug problem anyway but when we do water hose blows all the bugs away. Large green cut warms are hard to blast away with water they hang on tight but they are usually easy to find leaves will be eaten down to nothing that means there is a worm near by unless birds found it before me. We have no squash bugs this year either that is very surprising.