Can you spray soapy water on tomato plants?
Can you spray soapy water on tomato plants? You may be struggling with garden pests on your tomato plants and asking what you can do about it. I’ll share how you can deter pests with something you already have on hand!
Every year we deal with garden pests in our vegetable garden. And some years are worse than others.
That’s why I’m so glad that I came across this tip and I’m happy to share it with you!
Can you spray soapy water on tomato plants?
Yes, you can spray soapy water on tomato plants. But the key is to choose the correct soap and get the soap to water ratio correct. There are also other keys to success which I’ll explain below.
Soapy water works best to kill and deter small, soft-bodied insects like aphids, whiteflies, mites, mealybugs, and other similar pests.
A good rule of thumb is to test your soapy water on just one tomato plant before spraying your whole crop. Even better, test just a few of the bottom leaves to see how your tomato variety reacts to the soapy water.
Not all tomato plants react well to all kinds of soapy water.
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Choose the right soap to spray on tomato plants.
Selecting the right soap to use on your garden plants is important so that you don’t burn your plants. To be safe, use a mild, liquid dish soap. It froths better and sticks to leaves better than powdered or bar soap. But use what you have on hand.
When it comes to deterring pests in the garden, go with a mild dish soap. If your soap happens to have lemon or another citrus or peppermint scent to it, all the better. If not, you can add a few drops of essential oil to your mixture.
I personally like the peppermint Dr. Bronner’s pure castile liquid soap. As mentioned above, not all tomato plants react well to all different kinds of soapy water. If you find that the peppermint soap makes your leaves shrivel up, and if you didn’t add too much soap to your mixture, try a different kind of soap.
What is the correct soap to water ratio?
When I tried this on my plants years ago, I didn’t know how much soap to use and ended up killing my plants on accident by using way too much soap. I couldn’t spray the excess soap off and the leaves eventually shriveled up and the whole plant died.
For best results, start with one teaspoon of soap per gallon of water. You may need to work up to two teaspoons of soap per gallon of water, but you don’t want to go too heavy on the soap or you can risk burning, suffocating, and killing your plants just like I did.
How do you spray soapy water on tomato plants?
Get a convenient one gallon size pump nozzle sprayer to spray bugs off of your tomato plants. The nozzles are easy to adjust and you can be very accurate.
Spray soapy water on the tops and bottoms of leaves and wherever you see that garden pests are a problem.
How often should you spray?
Spray at regular intervals until you no longer see pests. Observe what happens after you spray your tomato plants and see how long it takes for garden pests to return, if at all.
Keeping a garden journal will help you keep track of when you spray, what soap you use, your soap to water ratio, and how the bugs react.
Remember to spray your plants whenever pollinators are not actively flying around. You don’t want to risk hurting these beneficial insects.
Additionally, it’s best not to spray during the hottest part of the day. Try the early morning or dusk so that the water and soap mixture can have a chance to settle on the leaves and bugs and air dry.
How to Get Rid of Black Bugs on Tomato Plants
Tomatoes are one of the most precious crops that we grow, so I want to be sure to keep them healthy so that they will produce an abundance of tomatoes.
If that’s you also, I want to encourage you to check out How to get rid of black bugs on tomato plants, which is another related blog post on this issue.
I also wrote How to control and get rid of aphids on pepper plants which can help you deter pests bothering your pepper crop!
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