I hate white flies.

The damned things are just evil to plants. Pure evil, I tells ya. They attract other pests, they often set up a scenario for mold to creep in. Not to mention the fact that they are a true infestation...if you don't spray pesticide on a continual basis, they'll just keep laying eggs and ruining your plant life.

And they're all over my plants. And have been all summer.

I have been using malathion for most of the summer, with some success. It's worked a treat on the tomatoes, for example, but not so much the verbena and cucumbers, and almost nothing on my herbs. The bad part about using malathion is that it's a poison...as in, it's a carcinogen for humans. It breaks down after 5 days, which is about how often I harvest the tomatoes, but if you ingest it over a period of time it will wreak its havoc. And to be honest, it hasn't done that bang-up of a job.

My dad gave me this organic insecticidal soap--a better product, in that you can spray your garden and still harvest them that day. It was much better than the malation...but I still have a ton of the poison left, that I feel weird just chucking it in lieu of the organic alternative.

And I'm not the only one having this problem; one of my friends in the next town over is having not just a white fly infestation, but beetles. I guess we got too much rain over the winter and spring, and this coupled with the mild summer evidently gave the green light for insects to swarm. Dammit.

But, hey, at least I finally have a cucumber to harvest. Naturally this happens a week or two before I planned on pulling the plants, so that I can start the fall/winter planting. *sigh*

On a brighter note,