A very common cause of foliar damage is the misuse of homemade soap mixtures. People may use a very harsh dish soap; they might use it at the wrong time of day or when it's too hot; many will make a solution that is too strong.

Soap treatments are an important tool in pest management but it might be a good idea to purchase a commercial product that is made expressly for this job.....with explicit directions about how, when, where, how much to use. Insecticidal soaps don't have the disagreeable additives that dish soaps have, another reason to use a product intended for use on plants.

If the leaf tissue has been killed, it will not recover. However, it is possible for your plant to put out new leaves. Aphids can be controlled by fairly asserted streams of water from the hose used every couple of days.

Really try to post some pictures, because brown and shiny can mean a *lot* of things.

Tomato leaves are usually pretty tough, even to soap mixtures. What was your recipe? What kind of soap did you use? Did you rinse the soap off afterwards? What time of day?

i would have loved to post a pic but i don't own a camera or at least a USB connector to post the pics nor do i have the money to buy one.

as for the soap mixture it was more likely something around 50% soap 50% water. which i really thing is what it was wrong as the bottle was too small so i couldn't dilute it enough and just burned my plants. they seem to be doing fine although the burns look up it it doing fine.

Let's just say that your soap and water mix was about 49.5% too strong. Not kidding.

OMYGOSH! You rained down soapy armageddon on those rotten aphids! LOL!

but Yeah, kinda strong :)
I use a drop or 2 in a large spray bottle & follow with a rinse of water, just in case. I admit to having killed off plants before I'd heard of rinsing the soapy water off after treating. Live and learn 8)

Antoinette

I'm with everyone else - your strong suspicion is the right suspicion ..... and I'm not making light of your misfortune, but I have to say that I thought "OMYGOSH! You rained down soapy Armageddon on those rotten aphids!", was pretty funny - it made ME lol.

You'll be lucky if we don't start calling you Suds, Sudsy, or Bubbles. Turning back now to a serious page - I really hope it doesn't have a huge impact on your yields. No one likes to hear that a little goof had a big impact and spoiled your efforts. I'm sure we're all hoping that's not the case. All the best to you, C.

Al

Crikey! You mean.. you literally used half dish soap and half water? I think you'll definitely learn a lot from this adventure.

Tomatoes are tough though aren't they! Best of luck.