garden pest spray

Tiny little black buggers have been eating up our tomato leaves!  Blasphemy!  I first tried to oust them by spraying the tomato leaves with dish soapy water. That knocked off about 75% of the bugs.

Next I tried a concoction of ground cayenne pepper soaked in boiling water and squirt of dish soap. Unfortunately, the ground cayenne clogged my spray bottle! I had to pour the liquid on the leaves which was clumsy and wasteful, but at least it seems to have worked pretty well.

Since you have to reapply after it rains, I most recently made a mixture of 2 T. crushed red pepper flakes with 1 1/2 c. boiling water and a squirt of dish soap.  I filtered out the crushed red pepper flakes as I poured the liquid into the spray bottle.  This mixture did not clog the spray bottle.  We shall see how it does with those tomato leaf eaters!