Indeed peebee, I HAVE SPIDER MITES. UGH!
I spent an hour looking at pictures from various .edu sites. I never noticed any webs, nor have any experience with this pest. Peebee's observations motivated me to take a closer look.
The sun was shining on the plant, so I had a good look. I rubbed my fingers on the leaf and didn't feel anything. I didn't see anything at first either. After my eyes acclimated a bit, I bent closer into the foliage. I noticed a faint glisten on the underside of a leaf, about 1/4 inch long. HMMM.. there is something to this. Then I noticed the spider web thread extended a bit further down the main vein. My next thought was they had left, but NO I wasn't that lucky. After staring at a leaf for about a minute I saw the mites, first just one, then a few on the upper side of a leaf. Did not look like a huge infestation, but what damage it did!
My project for when it cools down is to dump the soil in the pots in a leaf bag for the trash, and spray the pots with something (?) tomorrow. I have more reading to do on the mites as I know zero. This is the wicked hottest, dry stretch of weather we have had in years.
I sometimes overwinter indoors the survivors of my patio plants, this year herbs. Here is a photo of the patio mates the pineapple sage was growing near. I still have some hope to overwinter the neighboring herbs indoors by the south window. That is a prized columnar basil which took me years to find locally after reading about it on Tville. The others are different oregano (some bought some seed started) and a purchased lemon thyme. Sweet marjoram and lemon balm is on the other side of the door with the Chef Jeff hottest pepper (carribean) I bought last week.
Thanks for your help everyone!
- Lisa
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