Today, much to my horror, when checking my Sweet 100's, I found literally a *pile* of tiny little brown bugs, all clustered together near the ground on my tomato vines! Anybody have an idea what they may be? And more importantly, a good way to get rid of them for good? They aren't aphids.. they actually remind me more of tiny brown horseshoe crabs.

Either way.. ackkkkkkk! I raised these tomatoes from puppies!

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Casey

Hi, caseyst.....Welcome!

W/o being able to accurately id your buggies from your description, check out this veggie bug mug shot gallery and see if you can find the little "buggers" there:
http://vegipm.tamu.edu/imageindex.html

Check back if you see anything you recognize. Hey...check back anyway!

gardenz

That doesn't sound like any tomato pest I can think of. Maybe their accumulation on the ground *near* your tomatoes is just a coincidence?

You could make a little cardboard collar around the base of the plant and put some tanglefoot on it to see if they are trying to actually get on the plant...

Well, I have to thank you, that was the best "bugger" website I ever saw! Unfortunately, my particular little annoyances aren't anywhere to be found on that page. The closest thing I can find to what these look like is a leaf hopper -

http://vegipm.tamu.edu/sucking/leafhopper.html

The larger ones are green like a mature leafhopper here, but from the picture, mine aren't anything like this big, and they have a more rounded back, and appear to have folded wings, but it's hard to tell. The smaller ones are brown and have tiny little .. hairs? spikes? somethings (that works) on their little backs, and they also appear to have tiny folded wings. They are crawling up the plant, hanging out below the leaves. They're in clusters, having quite a party there obviously.

The only good thing here is, there are fire ants climbing up the plant and *eating* them. Now who ever thought there would be any use at all for a fire ant in the garden? If they'd just eat them all, I wouldn't worry, but I don't think they're going to before there's damage done. Any ideas on a good organic way to chase them off?

Thanks so much for your help!

Casey

Is it possible that they are aphids? Some aphids are winged, to get to new plants. They cling under the leaves and suck the juice out. The ants take care of the aphids (they are sometimes called ant cows)in exchange for the honeydew (a sugary substance)the aphids produce. There are plenty of organic solutions for aphids. The simplest is to blast them off with a hose.

I sure hope you're right, I just took your advice and gave them a (gentle) blast with the hose. They looked quite upset and fell off, then I put some more hay mulch around the tomato plant. Hopefully between the unexpected rain storm they got and the new obstacles they have to climb through, they'll find out that my little baby Sweeties aren't on their menu. If not, they'll get hosed again.

Btw, thanks so much everybody for the nice welcome... I've been lurking a long time (probably over two years now) but this is the first time I've been freaked out enough over something to officially de-lurk!

Casey

I know what those are. I had a huge prickly lettuce growing in the corner of my yard where the mower just would not reach. It was covered in the little buggers. They are aphids, though they aren't the cute cuddly green garden type I've seen. They have wings and they are brown and covered in little black spikes. They decided to launch an all-out assault on my veggies. Kill 'em quick!

That's the ones! I was starting to think I was the only one who ever had these things... but I found a way to get rid of them. I sprayed orange oil on them and BANG.. they're gone, they haven't come back, and my Sweet 100's are growing happily again! I had heard it would kill fire ants, so I figured, what the heck, all I have to lose are two plants that are getting sucked dry anyway... worked like a charm!

Casey