Well. Damn. Day off work today, long weekend with the Mrs. as it’s our wedding anniversary tomorrow. Didn’t have much planned bar a meal to celebrate the event in the evening, but it was a good excuse to spend a long weekend together as we normally do.
Never did I think I’d be going to WAR!
Whiteflies have invaded my upstairs landing! 🙁
My First Born! Under attack, again! This has to be one of the unluckiest plants in the history of plants!
Although, to be fair, Stumpy and the first Tesco Chilli plant where also under attack. Though, not as badly as this.
Never having to deal with anything like this before I hit Google for what to do next. Apparently the little swines have gotten quite used to all forms of normal insect repellent, they could be dealt with, but it was quite the hit and miss affair with what’d work and what wouldn’t
I wasn’t overjoyed at the news.
On my travels over the internet I came across a home made remedy using washing up liquid and cayenne powder mixed with water. Seemed easy enough to cobble together and I was never short of chilli powder around these parts 😉
Of course, the trouble with a lot of things you find on the internet, there was only a rough guide on how to make it.
“Washing up liquid” – Would Fairy Liquid do?
[Googles]
“Yes”
So, I popped a little drop, and I mean a little, think of tipping the nozzle over the spray jar and squeezing a little till it runs and then stopping almost immediately. That’s how little I used.
Next I put in half a tea spoon of cayenne powder, fairly heaped one though and then I filled it with water.
“Whitefly Death Spray” was born 😉
Out to the garden to make my defence!
I didn’t really know what to do for the best, so I blasted the plants in the garden where I could spray freely and liberally, they got soaked! That’s Stumpy (I know!) above after his treatment.
On closer inspection he was quite bad with eggs but not so many flies.
The Chilli Plant from Tesco also got a good soaking. This was the least effected from what I could see, which was odd as he was next to my First Born.
Didn’t really know what to do for the best at this point. The flies didn’t die straight away as I’d hoped, there was definitely less activity though. I didn’t want to risk getting my other plants infected with them either. I ultimately decided on moving them further down the garden. I’d leave them outside and check on them in the morning.
I checked the window sill they’ve been living on and it was still covered with eggs, flies jumping around as well, so that got a thorough cleaning with soap and water as well.
I’ve got no idea how they got in the house, how they found the plants or if I could stop them :-/