Tomato plant pesticides?

First and foremost thank you for your help.





My kids and I are growing tomato plants from seedlings. This is the first time we have grown anything. I am looking to find the most efficient way to keep knats or any type of pests' off of my plants. I really don't want to use any kind of chemical if I can.





My plants are about eight inches in height and already producing blossoms. Not sure if this the right for them, but hey my kids and I are excited! Any help with this would be great and again thank you all for your answers.





Mom and kids

Tomato plant pesticides?
You really shouldn't need any pesticides. There might be gnats, but honestly, who cares? They don't do a whole lot. There are a lot of people who used pesticides to keep their plants "clean" it seems like, and you're just introducing unnecessary risk (in the form of a neurotoxin) to yourself. Anywho, off the soap box....





The tomato worm may be your biggest predator and that is best removed by finding it, and picking it off. It actually might be fun when the plants are bigger to have the kids find them. It's kinda weird, but I used to love "hunting" for tomato worms when I was a kid. It was great! That'll be when the plants are bigger though...





Anywho, here is a nice website from the University of California, Davis that has tomato care, etc. If you do have any pests that can do much damage, this website should direct you to what you can do about it. http://ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/GARDEN/VEGES/...





The FIRST rule of pesticide use is to diagnose the problem and then decide if there is another way to deal with it. A problem has to be a significant amount of the crop being lost (a tomato out of 10 doesn't count as significant)... Don't spray preemtively, spray on a NEEDS only basis and that should keep you a bit safer.





Please please please be careful with your kids. So many pesticides in use these days have spraying requirements for adults and because kids are smaller, the pesticides are so much more toxic. I went to a talk a couple years ago about kids being poisoned by common pesticides sprayed by applicators (not necessarily licensed applicators). It was awful, and so I would really be aware that pesticides are poison and that ANYONE (lawn service, pest service) spraying them, better have a dang good reason. Anywho, again, off the soap box and be careful.
Reply:mustard gass
Reply:try planting them upside down. like hanging from a sturdy clothesline or hook from the rafters in a bucket with a hole at the bottom, that will at least keep bugs from your dirt and most of them from the rest of the plants
Reply:Congrats! You are in for a lot of fun.





Here are some sites that may help you:





http://www.ghorganics.com/page9.html





http://vegetablegardens.suite101.com/art...





http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/gardening/artic...