We reach the end of the troubles today – seeing them out with two pesky pests. Actually considering the number of bugs and creatures that roam and hover about the garden two doesn’t seem bad. If I were adding to the list I’d include slugs, snails and the occasional squirrel looking for a nut hors d’oeuvre. I know some growers suffer with racoons and deer – but that would count as a local news story round here rather than a tomato trouble. I don’t suppose Goff’s Oak (home to Mr. Cuthbert) was plagued with exotic tomato thieves either so we better turn our attention to what did threaten the tomato idyll back in the ’50s… and in terms of evolution between then and now, it turns out not much’s changed. Seems these two aren’t prepared to give up tomato turf to any newcomers any time just yet:
Greenhouse White Fly
This is perhaps the commonest insect pest of tomatoes. The adult flies are snow white and about one twentieth of an inch long. They breed at a pheomenal rate and cause much damage by sucking the plant juices and depositing a sticky honey-dew substance on the leaves. Moulds quickly grow on this honey-dew and the leaves become almost soot black in appearance and are, of course, unable to function properly.
To control White Fly, use a proprietary White Fly fumigant in accordance with the maker’s instructions. As the pest breeds so quickly and as fumigants do not destroy the eggs, treatment may have to be carried out two or three times so as to catch each brood.
Red Spider
This insect can be a serious pest on tomatoes. It flourishes under hot dry conditions and spins a fine web, usually on the undersides of the leaves beneath which it lives and feeds on the cell sap. During the winter it hibernates in cracks and crevices of the house structure, in bamboo canes or amongst any rubbish. Thus the need for extreme cleanliness and fumigation of houses with naphthalene just before a crop is removed. Before planting, the house should be throughly washed down with hot soapy water containing a good insecticide. If the insects appear on growing plants – and they are almost sure to if the atmospheric conditions are too dry and hot – spraying should be carried out with one of the many good proprietary emulsified petroleum washes which are now obtainable.
I had to look up naphtalene – turns out it’s a product of coal tar… but traces of it can also be produced by magnolias and some breed of deer! So may be having deer visit is no bad thing after all. And it would seem that if you have ever gone after a moth with a ball… then it’s naphtalene that would have been the active ingredient…
