Julie, It could be fungus gnats, but there are lots of other black, winged insects that it might be.

One key to having fungus gnats is wet soil, so if all the soil around you is really dry, that likely would rule out a fungus gnat infestation.

There are lots of tiny black flies, and some predatory wasps (which are beneficial insects), that would fit the description. There also are black aphids, some of which happen to be winged.

Do you see any signs of damage to your tomato plants at all? I don't worry about random bugs that show up unless I am positive they are doing damage. Even then, the damage has to reach a certain level before I'll do anything about the pests. You're always going to have a mix of insects--good and bad--in your garden and on your plants and, for the most part, the good insects eat the bad insects and help control them for you. That's why it is important to make slow, careful and deliberate decisions about whether to spray or not.

Since you've noticed they have wings, try flicking one off the plant with your finger and see if it flies. I find it interesting that they have wings and theoretically could fly, yet are sitting still. However, they aren't very good fliers so maybe they'd rather just sit. If you don't see them moving around and eating, I wonder why they are on the plants. Are they perhaps a beneficial insect that might prey upon aphids or other pests? That's what you want to figure out before you kill them. Right now my garden is full of beneficial, predatory wasps that help control caterpillars and I am so happy that they've shown up.

You could Google and find photos of fungus gnats to see if that's what you have, or check the link below. Look especially closely at the bottom of the linked page where three different black, winged insects of different types were photographed on yellow cards. See how much they resemble each other and how hard it can be to tell the good guys from the bad guys?

The safest organic control would be a purchased insecticidal soap. Why a purchased one and not a homemade one? Because it is very easy to mix up a homemade soap spray that's too strong and kills your plants. Purchased soap sprays are precisely mixed to avoid that scenario. Also, when people mix up soap sprays at home, they often accidentally use dish detergent instead of dish soap. It is a mistake that can kill plants. Be careful if spraying foliage on days when the high temp is 90 or above as leaf damage can result in our intense sunlight.

You also could use neem oil. It is available pretty much anywhere in spray bottles on the shelf in garden centers, including big box stores. Follow the label directions. I keep a spray bottle of it in my garden tool bucket just in case I need it, but I very rarely use it.

You also could use a spray containing spinosad as the active ingredient, but if you do, please spray in the evening when bees are not active because it will harm them and we need to protect the bees as much as we can since they are important pollinators of thousands of kinds of plants.

Just the existence of any insect on a plant does not mean the insect is a "bad" one or that damage is being done, so watch and see if it is damaging your plants. The worst thing you can do is accidentally kill off the good bugs that are controlling the bad bugs for you.

However, if looking at photos convinces you that you have fungus gnats, winged black aphids or flea beetles, then of course you probably should treat the plants for them, especially if you are seeing any symptom that indicates a problem with your plants.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Link with Images of Fungal Gnats

Is this what they look like?

I'm not sure about those pictures, they look more like little rounded insects, just like regular gnats. But they just sit there. I haven't actually noticed any damage on the plants, but bugs always make me a little nervous.

It's already getting a little dark back there tonight (it's cloudy), but I'll go out there tomorrow morning and see if I can make them move/see them better, maybe put them under a magnifying glass.

I bet Leslie is right about them being aphids, they just sit there like aphids. I just don't think I've ever seen black ones before. Thanks, everybody.

OK, I went out and looked at the bugs again. Couldn't make them move. There are a lot fewer of them today than I saw yesterday, but I also saw what looked like little balls of lint on some of the stems. A lot like the lint ball in that second picture, sitting on the end of the leaf.

I've been battling those bugs constantly. Fortunately, they're slow. I've been squashing them. I must do so every single day. I think they are sucking the juices at the stem there. My plants are stressed and I think it is primarily from them. I squash about least 3-10 per plant every day or every other day. The numbers have reduced since the predator bugs started showing up. I still don't know what they are. I thought they were a type of thrip, but they are exactly as you describe.

So, I'd recommend grabbing some rubber latex gloves and squish away. They're very slow=moving.

bon

Hi Bon--Well I'm not exactly sure what is going on, either my black aphids have been replaced by woolly aphids, or they have some kind of disease. They all now look like they are covered in bluish-white dryer lint or something. It is not a bad infestation and the plants still look fine other than the bugs on them.

I squished quite a few, but my plants are too big for that to be effective so I just blasted them off with a water hose. The plants are looking a little sad and droopy after that treatment but I don't see any bugs on them now.

If they come back, I have neem oil that I can try.

Julie, Look carefully at the woolly part. When aphids of any color shed their skins as they enlarge, the shed skin is whitish colored. Of course, it could be wooly aphids or one of the cottony scale type things. Also, if you have any kind of tree that shed cottony fluff along with its seeds, sometimes that stuff sticks to plants and makes people think they have either cottony scale or wooly aphids. Some mealy bugs also resemble white lint.

Dawn

They look like the aphids on my tomatoes. I left a few on as an experiment and ended up with one of those surrounded by a bunch of wingless ones on a leaf that were obviously aphids.

I just use my fingers to get rid of them and their spawn. And then I go wash my hands because they're soft and juicy.

Oh man, these things are everywhere! They're pretty much leaving the Marglobes alone, but the Better Bush is COVERED in them! I can't make them go away! Soap spray and DE haven't done a thing. BT is the next thing. I'm starting to see signs of stress. I think the larva was in the potting mix I bought from Home Depot. Grrr. I have been seeing their numbers increase. I have some spearmint in a pot sitting on top of the landscape bricks that the garden is made of. When I picked up the pot to move it to a new spot one day, there were literally hundreds of those little guys hanging out under the pot. I went to harvest a couple of Better Bush tomatoes and got a face full of gnats (or whatever they are). Ugh. And they're coming inside the house now. Hopefully the BT will work.

I think you have something different than what were on my plants, Jen. The ones on my plants couldn't fly. I'm pretty sure they were aphids. I blasted the crap out of them with a water hose and that seemed to do the trick.