il Tue, 03 May 2005 21:12:01 -0400, The Cook wrote:

David wrote:

I went out to the garden this morning to cut some end of season kale to
bring to some co-workers and discovered they had a sizable infestation
of whitefly. I had checked these same plants on Sunday and they were
fine. So, I think I've caught this at the beginning. I've pulled all the
kale and started spraying everything close by with Safer. What else can
I be doing?

Anyone have any good ORGANIC ways of dealing with whitefly?

David


According to the Rodale "Color Handbook of Garden Insects" the natural
control is to dust with tobacco dust or spray with tobacco tea.

Oh, lets give them cancer instead :-)). I have an old old book that
mentions that too, but it also talks of DDT, so I suspect tobacco is
obsolete also.

Mother Earth talks of a salt ans water solution ( no % given). It
also mentions using Bacillus Thuringiensis as a bio control. for
caterpillars and a whitefly parasite called Encarsia. Even a blast of
hose water can remove some insects. I use this on my roses to keep
the aphids down, they never get sprayed and seem to survive.
--
Cheers,
Loki [ Brevity is the soul of wit. W.Shakespeare ]