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Growing Tomatoes

next yrs garden and spider mites

12 years ago

i'm losing the battle with spider mights this yr. Its sad. The question i have is i can't move my garden spot so will i have problems with spider mites again in the same spot? or was this just a one time thing in my garden. I appreciate your imput

thanks

Bruce

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Comments (8)

yumtomatoes
12 years ago
Bruce - what are you using to control the spider mites?
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augiedog55
Original Author
12 years ago
i was using malathion . it was getting close to harvest of the tomastoes and it said not to eat the tomatoes for 7 dayus. so either i didn't pick my tomatoes that were coming or or fight the spider mites... long story short i'm chose to eat the tomatoes i had ready.
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Spidermites: I had two bushes infested earlier - short floribundas in a prime (hot, dry) location. All the dwarf alberta spruce had spider mites also. I sprayed once with TetraSan 5 from Rosemania. I sprayed the whole garden in part because I had lost one rose to Rose Rosette. One spraying did it - all species of plant life made a quick recovery. I know the roses had red spider mites, the spruce another type. The TetraSan handled both. I have since added some of those water crystals to the soil under the two floribundas that were infested to help maintain some humidity. Short roses in hot locations seem particularly prone to spider mite infestations. I taught DH to spray down the spruce thoroughly every time he waters or has the hose out for something. I don't know what it is with those dwarf spruce though - they all have nice locations, nice soil, heavy mulch. I think they are just annoying me cause DH likes them and I don't.
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Oh, what great advice! You are right, they seem to hit one region of the garden particularly hard. I'll put some marigolds in there and see if that helps. Thank you! I have lady bugs in the spring that do a bang up job on the aphids, they just don't seem to help with the spider mites at all. I'll look into some other options though. Thanks everyone.
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Are you sure this is Spidermites and not aphids. You can't see spidermites they are so miniscule. If you've been squashing them they can't be spidermites. If it is aphids this is what I do I use a hose end sprayer--the kind that has a bottle for fertilizer, like miracle grow. I fill the bottle 1/4 full of mouthwash and add about 2 tablespoons of liquid dishsoap then fill with cold water and connect to the hose and in the early evening when the suns strength is diminished I spray everything in sight. When the stuff in the bottle loses it's color then I refill the bottle. The stronger stream of water does better than a spray bottle. A couple of years ago My flowering crabapple was covered in them and the ants were farming them. I sprayed them and the next day they were gone but I sprayed a couple more times just to make sure
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I agree, I don't see any spider mite evidence. The dots on the leaves are just pores. The long thin string type of web isn't the kind a spider mite make,it's from a regular spider. Spider mites are more like a fine net, almost fabric like, and close to the surface of the leaves, covering it in a webby like cover. Here's some pics of spider mites and their webs and the damage they cause, so you can see the difference. I wish they were called something else, they are in the arachnid family, along with regular spiders, but so many people get them mixed up with regular spiders because of the name Spider Mites. Maybe we should call them Sucky Mites, lol. On the last pic you can see dots, but notice the spider mite caused dots are yellow and will show through to the other side as well. If you could look at them parallel to the surface, you'd see they're sunken in because it's a where the mite sucked out the fluid from the tissue. The dots on you leaves are darker and not sunken.
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yumtomatoes
12 years ago
Have you tried insecticidal soap or horticultural oil? Those 2 are supposed to help, but you really have to drench the plant and get the undersides of the leaves. I use neem oil and insecticidal soap on my plants. You can't spray the soaps or the oils during the day time else it will scorch the leaves. So I spray them in the evening.

Kelthane is supposed to work, too, but I am not sure if it is sold to home gardeners. The link below is a discussion of spider mites from the past.

Here is a link that might be useful: kelthane
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digdirt2
12 years ago
Bruce - where do you live/garden zone? Some control methods are more effective based on location. Some IPM biological controls for S.mites can be quite effective if you live in the warmer zones, less so further north.

There is also a weather element in s. mite infestations so was your weather highly unusual this year?

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: IPM - S. mite controls
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augiedog55
Original Author
12 years ago
Dave I live 30 miles East of Kansas City Mo. I don't know the zone
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augiedog55
Original Author
12 years ago
Yes the weather was terribly hot for about a month.. 97 to 107.. The sider mites were even eat up the vines that grew up the fence next to the tomatoes.
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missingtheobvious
12 years ago
You can enter your zip code here and it will tell you your zone:
http://www.garden.org/zipzone/index.php
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robeb
12 years ago
augiedog,

I'm just west of you in Overland Park.
I've been growing here for 7 years, and this is only the 2nd season spider mites have been a problem. The mites flourish when it very hot and dry and since our summers here are usually hot & humid, I wouldn't worry about next year.
Once I spotted the mites, I hit them with neem oil. A couple of rain showers in the next few days plus the neem seemed to put them out of business.
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