Googling "whitefly predators" reveals many retailers who sell wasps or a subspecies of ladybird beetle that eats whitefly eggs and larvae. Apparently, you need to identify which species of whitefly you have to pick the right predator. There are sticky traps available for the adults.

I learn so much thinking about questions posed in this forum. Apparently, the species of ladybird beetle that eats whitefies doesn't like plants with hairs (like tomatoes). I don't like peppers so I've never grown them, but I understand they're related to tomatoes. Do they have hairs like tomatoes?

Until you find the right plant/predator you can spray down the plants with a mixture of dishsoap and water to kill what's currently on your plants and then rinse the plants off an hour or so later. Just don't do this during the hottest part of the day or while the plants are in sunlight or you could hurt the plants. That won't effect the fruit and should at least buy you some time to find a more long term solution.

Another good spray is alcohol and dawn dish-soap, especially for mealy-bugs....I mix it full-strength alcohol w/squirts of Dawn and it seems to work good.....sally

I think you need to plant all of your veggies in at least a 3 gallon pot or you won't get any fruits of any great size. If you can plant them in the garden they will do alot better. White flies are hard to get rid of. When they are in the egg stage nothing can kill that that I know of. You will have to spray several times on a regular basis. To attract beneficials insects, yellow is the best flower to attract them, then pinks and purples. You should plant flowers that are small, medium and large in height to attract alot of different good bugs. Also companionship gardening helps increase the amount of veggies and better tasting ones. Some people don't believe in this, but I do. If my ancestors followed it, they must have had good reasons to do so.They lived off the land and canned or froze any extra that they had from the garden. Also I just read about planting by the Zodiac signs. Each plant does better when it is planted under the right sign. I haven't try that one yet,but I will. Good luck and God Bless You!! zackey

Hi, I live in Brevard, too. Just in case we're neighbors, do you ever see American White Shepherds out-n-about, along with a funny-looking Chihuahua? That's us, lol. Don't be afraid to come over and say hi, we're friendly.

I wonder if those tiny little dark colored flies are fungus-gnats, and/or possibly fruit flies...and are the caterpillars tiny, too, kinda crawling around in the potting mix? If so, those might be the tiny little dark colored fly's offspring.

We've been non-scientifically experimenting ---if you live in our neighborhood, you'll see the house with some coonties in the front yard. One of the coonties is singled out with a head-net (the kind that people wear over their heads and it covers face, ears and neck with a draw-string cinched up to help protect from biting bugs and stinging bees). Well that coontie with the head-net on it is filled with Ladybugs...So I was wondering if a Ladybug filled netting might work for your container gardening on your deck. Btw, nice decking!

Also, we've been using 'used coffee grounds' on all our plants, whether potted or planted out for landscaping (see link below for gist), and I think it's been working, even on those those tiny fly gnat thingies, which I think makes the soil or potting mix somehow unappealing to them! Um, just in case it needs to be said, I am not an expert.

If you live anywhere near Emerald Island Nursery, Rockledge Gardens, or Sun Harbor Nursery, all are super nice, very helpful, and supply organic remedies.

Good luck to you, and very best wishes!

Here is a link that might be useful: Coffee grounds

In my yard, spiders seem to be a good whitefly predator/control...

3.2.whites; glad to hear from another brevard gardener. I live down in Indialantic.

Zackey, great post until I got to the part about planting under zodiac signs. that one caused a double take followed by a facepalm. the plants should be in larger pots, but when I move to an apartment in a month, balcony space will be at a premium. so for now I'll see how they do in these. if I successfully overwinter them, they'll go into bigger pots for sure next year. currently they are teeming with buds, flowers, and pods, so it can't be holding them back that much.

carolb, I agree, but my wife hates spiders, and would never go anywhere near my plants if they were there.

I sprayed all the problem plants down with soapy water last night, and spent yesterday afternoon creating an herb garden (some of which were on the list of plants that attract lacewings and parasitic wasps, some are just stuff that I cook with).

hopefully that will clear up my whitefly issues. a sharp stick and a watchful eye takes care of the caterpillars quite well.

We have these little green spiders with orange on their bodies/butts. They are very efficient mosquitos killers. They make webs right in front of the chicken coop 'doors and windows' (which are covered with hardware cloth)and catch the mosquitos as they try to fly in and bite the chickens at night. There sure are lots of FAT happy green spiders now lol.
I have also noticed lots of dragonflies around eating the mosquitoes. I believe the nymphs of the dragonflies will also eat the larvae of the mosquitoes in an established pond. We have a small creek channel not far from us with some stagnant pools depending on how much rain we get. I suspect they might be coming from there.

Orange Cosmos seem to really attract the orange assassin bugs here. I have been finding lots of lady bugs eating aphids on the brugmansia lately as well.
~Lyn

This post was edited by sultry_jasmine_night on Mon, Jun 10, 13 at 12:17

I don't know about plants, but supposedly raisins will attract ladybugs. I have not looked into this and merely saw it in passing on Pinterest, which tends to have a lot of misinformation, so take take this 'tip' with a grain of salt.