I just seemed to have gotten rid of the spider mites that invaded my garden almost 2 yrs. ago.

I tried everything and had to resort to poison.
Had to use neem oil mixed with a miticide to finnally kill them.
It seems the miticide killed the mites as I sprayed it on the plant but didn't kill the ones that hatched after it was applied.
Neem seems to mix with the miticide and since it's an oil the stuff coated the plants and when the mites hatched the oil killed them.
I tried soap sprays,neem by itself,several home brew recipes from the net,Dursban,Diazononm,Malathion then a 3 in 1 miticide.
Non did much more than piss off the mites until I mixed the neem and miticide together.
I had to spray my plants 3 times in every other day intervals.
Mite egg ladened females will hibernate when things get nasty for them.When things get favorable for them the hiding females will come out and lay the eggs.
I was spraying the soap spray and neem 2 times a day for weeks last season with no results as far as even controlling them.
I baught several mite destroyer type bugs but the mites just tangled them up in their webs and they died.
Spent over $300. on organic bug controls for mites that didn't work.
The little boogers would hide in my fluoro light fixtures to avoid the spraying then come out and invade my sprouts.

So far I haven't seen a mite in about 2 weeks so I think I got rid of them,inside and out.
They lay eggs every 4 days and if you see a few mites you probably have tons that haven't grown big enough to see yet.

As far as soap spray went the most effective thing that almost seemed to work was to mix neem and soap together in warm water in a 5 gal. bucket and dip the plants in it for about a min.
It might have worked except I have too many plants and after a week of dipping them and still having mites I stopped doing it.
I think that whenever I was dunking the plants a few would fall off and eventually crawl back to the plants also some probably fell off onto my hands and clothing,eventually getting back to my plants to re populate the colony or start a new one.
Spraying my shelves and entire area down with the neem/miticide mix was the only thing that seems to work so far for me.
Some of the stuff I tried is advertised as a mite killer(neem for 1) but mites are so adaptable they are very hard to get rid of.
All it takes is 1 female to lay eggs and you are screwed.
UC davis etc basically told me to skip a season or plan on being hassled with them for life if I didn't use a mite specific poison.
Most other stuff just keeps them semi controlled.
Miticide costs a LOT.Especially the stuff you can use on veggies/edibles.
We don't have cold enough winters to kill mites like people in other states so mites grow year round here.

Good luck with your battle to get rid of the nasty buggers.

Well I definitely will not be spending much money. My garden is a major priority,
but paying rent gets to be just slightly ahead on my list :(

You never tried an alcohol solution then, smokemaster?

I had been using a garlic olive oil/soap/water mixture for aphids and whiteflies but I
did not like the residue and it did very little on a clovermite that i sprayed, which
might be tougher than a spidermite, but the 50/50 alcohol pretty much vaporized a
clovermite (much easier to test on since they seem to stay on the pots/soil) so I switched to that.
The olive oil/soap residue also seemed to cause excessive wilting and did not rinse off easily.

I made sure to douse the soil of all the plants in pots with the alcohol solution, as well as spraying the
top and bottom of leaves. I do not see how they could be resilient enough to survive a soaking in alcohol,
but the eggs might be and that is what I am concerned about.

Maybe I will reconsider re-leasing this apartment, if these spidermites are so likely to reoccur next year.
Immagine that awkward conversation, "Ya, I would like to keep living here, the maintenance is great and
you guys let me put pots all over my patio. Unfortunately there are spidermites in my garden so I will have to move in the fall!" hehe

Thanks again for any help.

I tried just straight 50% Isopropyl alcohol.
Didn't mix it with water.
It didn't do much different than any of the other things I tried.
I had spider mites.
Females were red and the others were dark brown/black.
I could hose down my garden at dark thirty AM and by noon they were totally covered with web.
Totally covered,not just branches but like I had spread christmas angel hair on top of my garden.

I think what happened was my plants were so big that by the time I saw the mites there were so many it was way past time for much of anything to be done about controlling them.
Bennificial bugs just got tangled in the mite webs and died.
With mites it seems that if you see a few,you really have a ton of them.
They are also good at making a long strand of web that they hang onto in the wind and blow over to the next plant.
I'd treat all your plants wether you see mites or not.

I hear they are great steamed with melted butter...
Taste like crab.

Well my plants are very young I can easily get full coverage. My plan is to drench them with alcohol solution every evening and then hose down the whole area to get the humidity up. I wish my tomatoes would grow slower because they are exploding and I don't want that right now!

what part if the country are you guys in? i get mites terribly in my greenhouse here in virginia but once the plants are moved outside they subside quickly. i have always attributed it to our high humidity...

Smoke, what mitecide did you use? I hate that Kelthane was taken off the market some years ago, it was the most effective thing for the home gardener.
Susan

I used a miticide by Bayer.

3 in 1 I think it was called.
It's not for veggies.Roses etc.

I researched the ingrediants and they use the miticide on grapes and other fruit crops.
From what I've read they don't want you using it on veggies because if enough of it gets in the soil it becomes a systemic which isn't a good thing.
It lasts 30 days...don't know how long as a systemic.

I only used it on plants that I'm repotting or not planning to eat the pods.
My sprouts I think will be ok for eating since they will have grown out in new soil and not be sprayed anymore with any kind of poison.Just neem from now on.
I think if I had mixed neem with the Dursban,Diazanon and malathion it would have worked.
I think the secret was mixing the water based contact type poisons with an oil made them last longer between sprayings so the hatching mites got wet oil/poison on them when they crawled around on my plants.
I think the other stuff I used only killed mites when it was wet and wasn't effective dry on the leaves.

I talked to a friend who is an exterminator and he said oil based poisons are always better than water based ones.They last longer etc.
He agreed that the neem was probably a good carrier for the water based poison and said malathion,dursban and diazanon should have worked in their oil based form...
He doesn't like water based poisons.
He said the way I use the 3 in 1 should be OK by harvest time on my new plants since they aren't getting sprayed with the miticide anymore and the concentration should be almost zero by harvest in 3+ months.
He said to not eat any of the pods off my older plants that are budding now.
Spring crop on the plants now is history but the stuff this fall should be ok.
I'd try neem mixed with Malathion ,Dursban or Diazanon first before using the miticide.
That stuff is ok for veggies after X amount of days-some is supposed to be safe the day before harvest-so they say...

If you don't have a ton of plants I'd stick with alcohol or whatever until I find out if I start growing a third eye or something from using the 3 in 1 stuff on a food crop.

If you do use the 3 in 1 I'd use caution as far as when you use it in relation to harvest.
I grow in pots only so I don't have to worry about possible soil contamination.
Everything got re potted after I sprayed down my plants last time and I just short of bare rooted them.
Also I treated mostly new sprouts that will grow hundreds of times bigger by harvest time so even if their is residue it shouldn't be a problem.
I grow mostly C.Chinense and they won't be putting out pods until Sept.
It'll be too hot soon and the buds will drop until Sept or Oct.
So it'll be a long time since they were exposed to the miticide and buds set pods.

I'm not an expert but am going on info from an exterminator and research I got about the ingrediants in the 3 in 1.
I don't know if the 3 in 1 kills some veggies either,which could be another reason they don't want you using it on veggies.
Maybe it kills Lettuce,beans and tomato plants,I don't know.
I only grow non bell peppers,nothing else.

Thanks for the wealth of info. I definitely saw some mites today but I have only sprayed once and not very thoroughly. The guys I have in 4 inch pots seem very mite free, since I was able to position them well and really get under the leaves thoroughly. I am thinking of watering my peppers daily in small amounts to keep the humidity as high as possible. Spring is just hitting central CA, and this is when all the moisture is sucked out of the air as the weather heats up. I have read countless stories at this point of hopeless spidermite outbreaks in the central valley because of the dry climate.

I will continue spraying daily, but it is difficult to get the undersides of all the plants in the ground, maybe I need a better spray bottle because this thing doesnt work for crap!

I was thinking I would prefer a poison that does not linger like oils. I have a population of ladybugs that are keeping the aphids in check, and they could easily be causing more damage than the spidermites at the rate they were multiplying before I got the ladybugs. I think it is as important to keep my beneficials as it is to poison the mites.

Does alcohol harm plants at all? Any reason I cannot spray a 50% solution multiple times a day? I would think this could be more effective than using something more harsh in larger intervals. Plus, the alcohol will not linger and I can spot ladybugs and avoid them fairly easily.

Should I assume they have spread to every plant? Or do spidermites play favorites?

Thanks mucho!

Nothing is more damaging to plants than spider mites.
Nothing is harder to get rid of either.

Neem by itself isn't supposed to kill Ladybugs etc.

I just found more mites outside on a manzano plant,so I think I'll toss any plants that I find any mites on.
I'm tired of messing with them.
Gonna cost me a zillion dollars a pod if I keep fighting the little buggers.
Only the manzanos seem to have the mites so far.
Must have been a spot I missed spraying that mites were hiding in.
I give up.
I'm not going to spray the miticide again.
Don't want to re pot everything again.
This sucks!

Well things look good this evening, I sprayed some mites on a plant I missed yesterday,
but all the others look very mite free. We will see what happens over the next few days in terms of
eggs hatching. I really like the alcohol solution so far, it annihilates aphids and whiteflies on contact
and dries in just moments, and I hit a poor ladybug who fell out of the plant but crawled away just fine.
So far I see no damage to the plants either.

The deal breaker will be whether or not I can keep the mites in check once the plants grow to a size where I cannot cover them fully with a spray bottle.

We will see how the plants grow with daily spraying of alcohol, I cannot find any material on the negative effects it has on plant tissue.

I'm subjecting then to some 50 degree winds after another round of alcohol last night. Hoping to freeze any eggs!

I don't think 50 degrees is cold enough to kill them.
My plants were in mid 30 degree nights and it didn't faze the mites at all.
also mites love wind.They make a long strand of web and like to parachute to new plants in the wind.
Hope it works for you but it can't be that easy...LOL

I found more newly hatched mites inside today.
Sprayed with straight 50% rubbing alcohol.
Seems to kill the hatched guys but the eggs look the same.
I'll look again in a couple hours at the eggs and see if they changed any.
Miticide turns them from clear to tan when it kills them.

I think it would be worth some real testing. It definitely wipes out the adults, 3 rounds of spraying and I cannot find one, and i searched hard. To be honest I never found any after the first round, but my plants are still under 12 inches and easily covered entirely. I was looking at a 3 in 1 miticide today but opted to wait since I cannot find any adults. I am also watering heavily to keep the humidity up as high as possible. The seedlings are in a plastic tray with a bit of water and in the day you can feel the humidity off that sucker. From what I have been reading humidity can be a great defense.

Im using a 60/40 solution with hot water and the plants really seem untouched. Might as well go as strong as possible because 50/50 just barely kills bugs, from my testing, (poor bugs lol).

I sprayed my plants with 50% isopropyl alcohol a couple hours ago.
I pulled off a leaf that had several mites and eggs on it to look at under my magnifier to watch and see what happened to the mites on the leaf.
At first it looked like the mites on the leaf I pulled off the plant were dead.
Now it's a couple hours later and the mites aren't dead.
They probably have a hangover but are possitively not killed by 50% isopropyl straight from the bottle.
It only stuns them.
Suckers are probably just drunk and horney,gonna go and make lots of baby mites...

I think the guy I talked to from U.C.Davis is right.

Once you get mites you can only try and control them.

The only way to get rid of them is to skip a season and get rid of anything they may have had contact with that they could have hid in to hibernate until they had new plants to infest.
They are too adaptable and become immune to poisons and when things get nasty the egg baring females hide and hibernate until they think it's cool to lay their eggs.
It only takes 3-5 days to get a mature mite from an egg.

Only thing I didn't try was no pest strips which is something a lot of people say works great.
If I can find a couple I'll hang them on my grow shelf and see what happens.
Looks like the plants outside will have to be sprayed 2 times a day (dark thirty AM and early evening)from now on just to keep the mites from taking over again.
Probably use neem and soap,no poison.

The no-pest strips I bought at Lowe's got rid of at least 90% of the mites in my greenhouse. I kept the vents and doors closed for several days. This was done during a cloudy period in the fall. They also worked on the whitefly, getting rid of probably 98% of them. I also used those house bombs for roaches etc and they helped finish more off. But we can't get rid of either of them completely since they winter over outside as well as inside the GH. Once on your property, there are there to stay.

Has anyone tried killing down the population, and *then* releasing predatory mites? From Smoke's story of the predatory mites being a waste, I'm pretty bummed. Just decided to order some this morning since I had previously read they were the best we to "get rid" of spider mites. I have them in my house and even had them spread to my fruit/vegetable bowl on the kitchen counter. This really hampers plans I had for installing a living wall in the sunroom--already have constructed waterproof wall.

For background, the mites started in 20 gallon tubs I was growing elephant ears from bulbs in. Then moved to mums then angel trumpets. They seem to not bother other common (more hardy and waxy-leaf) house plants sitting right next to infested plants. Wonder if they're resistant or the mites are just eating tastier stuff first.
This has been going on since last July and the elephant ears are dead.
I'm in northcentral Wyoming high desert, 25% humidity, up to 50% in the summer.

Tried tea tree oil mixed with soap and water, misted; painting on neem oil with soap and water. Painting neem oil with soap and water caused all the (mature, but not tiny new) leaves to drop of angel trumpets within 3 days. Have since been advised that the oil is suffocating the leaves and to only paint the bottom 2-3 inches of the trunk.

Well, after reading what you guys have been going through, I'm going to toss my two rocotos. They're still alive, but looking bad. And I can't seem to get off my a$$ to spray them down often enough. We'll be moving back to the PNW late Spring or early Summer anyway, so I'll just start over next year. We'll be busy doing house(no more apartment, yay!)repairs and tending to the grounds for the rest of the season. I'll only be taking a few houseplants that are in wall pockets that I've had for many years with me, so I think I can manage treating them and repotting them so I'm not taking half of Wisconsin's mite population with me. I'll be giving/throwing away most of my pots(most are just plastic)and, waiting a whole season to begin again should help, especially in an area with a lot of moisture...slugs, here I come! I'll take slugs over ticks any day! In Western WA you don't have to strip down every night to do a slug check...although in certain situations it could be fun...sorry, off topic.
I'll be sure to seek out the miticide and neem before starting my new garden just in case. Thanks for sharing your experience.

The mites outside are alive and well in Manzano Plants.
They are going into the dumpster.
All my other plants were trimmed to sticks and appear mite free.

No pest strips , worked great indoors.

A note on predator Mites.
They are very Temp. and humidity specific.
Lots of people can't use them in their greenhouse or wherever.

Data sheets on bebnificial bugs etc.

http://www.tiptopbio.com/tech_bulletins.html

http://www.tiptopbio.com/neoseiulus_fallacis.html

http://www.tiptopbio.com/neoseiulus_californicus.html

http://www.tiptopbio.com/amblyseius_fallacis.html

http://www.tiptopbio.com/coleomegilla_maculata.html

http://www.tiptopbio.com/feltiella_acarisuga.html

http://www.tiptopbio.com/galendromus_annectens.html

http://www.tiptopbio.com/galendromus_helveolus.html

http://www.tiptopbio.com/galendromus_occidentalis.html

http://www.tiptopbio.com/hippodamia_convergens.html

http://www.tiptopbio.com/lindoris_lophanthae.html

http://www.tiptopbio.com/mesoseiulus_longipes.html

http://www.tiptopbio.com/phytoseiulus_macropilis.html

http://www.tiptopbio.com/phytoseiulus_persimilis.html

http://www.tiptopbio.com/stethorus_punctillum.html

I get my bugs from here...

Here is a link that might be useful: source for the good guys

Thanks for the tip on no pest strips. I almost lost most of my overwinters to mites. I hit them with a sulpher spray (Bonide Citrus Orchard Spray, or something like that) then hung a no pest strip near the plants. It seems to have done the trick.

Why I never tried the Bonide stuff is because it has Pyrithrin (SP) or similar poisons in it.

U.C.Davis found that some mites actually like the stuff.

It does something to make them breed like crazy.
Plus it kills off the natural stuff that might eat them.

No pest strips might be not so good to hang out around for a long time but I only hang it out when needed.

I seal it in a vac pack bag between uses.

I think it needs air to evaporate whatever is in it.
Seems to work so far...

I might try this stuff this season.
Gotta watch soil PH and can burn plants in the sun...
Gotta be careful...

Liquid Sulfur link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: liquid sulfur

Yeah, with spider mites you don't really get the luxury of being able to pussyfoot around with organic cures. Its either ditch the plant or go straight for the big boy poisons. Spider mites will just laugh at anything less than that.

You all are scaring me. I experienced aphids for the first time this fall. It sounds like that might be a cake walk compared to spider mites.
Bruce

Aphids,White flies ,thrips ,leaf miners and scale are easy.
Green lacewings and Ladybugs laugh at them.

Mites are a can of pure evil with no expiration date.

Best defense against all these pests are healthy plants. I've only had issues with pests when plants are not in optimum conditions such as humidity too high or low, or not enough light etc. As long as my plants are getting everything they need, pests don't bother with them.

And on this note, I ended up throwing out my overwintering peppers due to pests caused by lack of light. None of my healthy plants have pests at all.

I beat the aphids earlier this Winter...only to find spider mites on my Hungarian last week.
I've treated the plant twice with Murphy's, water, and alcohol, and I'll be doing so again.

Season 5 might just be the end of this pepper plant. She's been a good companion.

Josh

Josh,
sorry to hear that. I too battled the aphids on two of my indoor plants this year. They were unworthy opponents. I have yet to experience spider mites however. It would be tough for me to give up on a 4 yr old plant.
Bruce

All things must pass.... ;-)

The aphids were child's play this Winter....two Ladybugs had 'em licked within a few days.
Spider mites, though, what a pain in the ass. I'm used to dealing with them on my citrus....
indoor on the pepper plant is a different story! Hopefully I can limp my Hungarian
along until stronger sunlight restores her energy.

Josh

how depressing it was to read this post!!! But now I don't feel quite so frustrated, well just a thin line between blowing up my green room and tearing out all my hair!! I thought it was just me that had this problem. I had them last year and this rear they came back with a vengence. How cold is cold that I might be able to kill them off? Or is it just closing up the green house for a summer and let them cook?? I've tried seven, eight, couldn't find a nine!! LOL But have never tried alcohol...gonna try that and the pest strips. If anyone else has some ideas I sure would be interested.