What Can You Put on Tomato Plants to Keep the Bugs Off?

Soapy Water

• Spraying your tomatoes with soapy water is the simplest and most cost-effective way to get pests off your tomato plants. To make a soapy water spray, mix 2 tbsp. of regular dish soap with 1 quart of warm water, and put the mixture in a spray bottle. You can then liberally spray your plants, including fruit, with the mixture. Bugs should begin to die off immediately.

Insecticide

• If you want something that works a little bit more long-term than soapy water, you can use chemically-based insecticide. Insecticides can be bought at grocery, garden and home improvement stores, but the insecticides can be quite toxic. Make sure to follow all instructions and wash any harvested tomatoes thoroughly before consuming.

Horticultural Oil

• Horticultural oil is a little bit harder to find than insecticide, but can be found in specialty gardening stores. This oil can be sprayed on tomatoes and will clog the pores insects use to breathe, killing them instantly. This is a good solution as it is non-toxic and works on all kinds of pests.

Ladybugs

• If you want an extremely natural solution, you can always use ladybugs to get rid of tiny pests on your tomatoes. Though it sounds counter-intuitive to introduce more bugs to get rid of other bugs, ladybugs are non-intrusive and will eat destructive bugs like aphids. The best part is that once the ladybugs have eaten all the bugs on your tomato plants, they will leave all by themselves.