Texas Gardening: Polka Dot Tomatoes?, 1 by cr0ak

cr0ak wrote:
I've been killing as many stink bugs as I can, but really haven't seen anywhere near as many as I had in the past. I think the drought has played a part in keeping a lot of insects from multiplying - except for the fleas! Then, too, as much as I hate to use chemicals on anything, we had such a bad infestation of fleas a couple months ago that my husband went to Solutions and picked up some expensive product that the guy said kills *everything*. He sprayed it on the lawn and sure enough, that took care of our flea problem. I noticed that there were a lot fewer insects around after that. (I kinda felt sorry for the birds and the little geckos who rely on insects for food; and while I do feed the birds, there's not much I can do for the geckos.)

I noticed, too, that the stink bugs seemed to be inordinately attracted to the cardoon plant that I have - and I've been able to kill a lot of them just by keeping tabs on the cardoon. But I haven't seen any recently. I really have to wonder if this is some kind of disease. I've never seen this before on tomatoes. I know that the stink bugs will suck the juices of the tomatoes and that that causes hard yellow spots, but these spots aren't hard. In fact, they're actually softer than the rest of the tomato.


Just in case, I don't think I want to eat these 'maters!

This is a shot of my cardoon. It's gotten to be quite large (about 5 feet in diameter) but I love it. In the spring it's a nursery for ladybugs. :)