Spider Mites
 

[URL]http://www.rollitup.org/t/how-to-kill-spider-mites-100-naturally-no-chemicals.475307/[/URL]

Has anyone tried this? It sounds amazing (apart from having to wear protective gear when spraying!)

Linda

Haven't tried this one but it looks promising!
I have made this one before, with great success:
Per 600 ml/h20
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp rosemary
1/8 tsp thyme
1 tsp sesame oil (toxic to mites on its own)

heat to boil - simmer about 30 seconds - let cool - spraaaay awaaay!
I remedied my indoor issues with this last year with only two treatments

Linda, I respect Habanero Pepper too much to do that to myself. It is next to dangerous.
I would rather pull my plants.

[url]http://www.cornnation.com/2015/7/21/9007869/how-i-learned-to-respect-the-habanero[/url]

That is very scary Ella!

I'm not a hot pepper person at all, so when I visited a nursery recently and asked which hot pepper I should grow so that I could make a spray to repel furry rodents, the guy steered me away from a very hot Indian variety because he said that would be cruel to use on chipmunks! I settled on a cayenne pepper instead, and I wonder if it would work on the spider mites.

Linda

I know not to use plastic containers with hot peppers, they absorb it. If you decide to do that, wear gaggles and face mask.
For squirrels I used Cayenne powder. I did not heat it in water, and it was diluted a lot. I tasted it, it was very mild.

[QUOTE=efisakov;495245]Linda, I respect Habanero Pepper too much to do that to myself. It is next to dangerous.
I would rather pull my plants.

[url]http://www.cornnation.com/2015/7/21/9007869/how-i-learned-to-respect-the-habanero[/url][/QUOTE]

:)) What a good read! I think I'll stick with my formula, and mite predators hahaha

Mike, thanks for sharing your formula. It looks pretty simple and the ingredients are ones that most people have handy in their kitchens.

Linda

I use Garden Safe. It is also a miticide.

The no-pest strips have worked for me. It is a harsh chemical, though.

I am presently trying Efisakov's method of dissolving DE food grade in water and spraying the plants with it. While I waited for my DE to arrive the mites did incredible damage to my older plants and I had to remove mountains of dying foliage. I am going to reapply the DE and see if it makes a big difference. I am thinking that it may be harmful to beneficials as well as pests but since I would have had to resort to poisons anyway with the extent of mites I was dealing with I'm going to give it a good tryout and see how it works. I'm not even going to attempt to use hot peppers because they are too harsh on me trying to prepare them and they don't last very long I have found from past experiments with pepper sprays. Another reason it is impractical for me is the number of plants and the amount of spray it would take to cover them. If the DE doesn't work I can always go back to very soapy water and Permethrin.

Bill

Bill, it is RobinB that suggested DE spray originally, not me. I am just sharing it with others.

[QUOTE=efisakov;495524]Bill, it is RobinB that suggested DE spray originally, not me. I am just sharing it with others.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for sharing. Yours was the first post I saw on using it and since I wanted to try it anyway on slugs this fall I thought "why not try this it might work?" I hope to have all the pruning done tomorrow and then will apply another spray of DE to my plants.

Bill

Great read! Funny, because anyone who has ever had one and thought they could handle anything hot has had a similar experience. Maybe we learned faster from the one experience, but, we learned the hard way! Lethal hot!

Dewayne mater

That was hilarious! Guess I'll stick to jalapeño peppers for my hot pepper jelly! And forget it altogether for killing the mites!

I tried this year DE spray. It is rather inefficient. Maybe if you cover the unaffected leaves completely, there would be a chance you can keep them off. And applying more than once is essential. Droplets form, and the DE inside the water being heavy, goes at the bottom of the droplet before it dries, making coverage be greatly reduced even if they are drenched.