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Old May 1, 2019   #43
PlainJane
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My hand pump sprayer holds about 2 quarts, I believe. Last year I sprayed neem once or twice a week depending on how the rainstorms came, at a concentration of about a teaspoon of neem oil plus a little liquid soap as an emulsifier. This made a small dent in the aphids and foliar diseases but didn’t eradicate.
Starting in January I hung dozens of Seabright Labs yellow sticky traps and they have worked fantastically against aphids and whiteflies.

This spring has been delightfully dry but that’s about to end. I plan to begin a bleach spray alternating with peroxide, applied near the end of the day, once or twice a week. I’ll have to see how much the leaves can stand by starting with a weak dilution and moving up.

I thin all suckers below the first flower truss, and if it’s a thickly foliaged tomato I thin more. It’s a balancing act - air circulation vs. sun-scald. I’ve already started removing the very bottom set of leaves; anything close to the soil line is coming off.

The other big change was converting all tomatoes and peppers over to a soilless 5-1-1 mix. So far so good!
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