I just had the pleasure of decapitating one of these female Gray Bird Grasshoppers yesterday. It was a long "cat and mouse game", a lot of watching and waiting... I squished it good at least three times, and every time, the thing just got up and flew around me! Yuck! When I finally managed decapitate it, with a PVC pipe, the head kept moving on the ground for a long time... Like really gross and spaced out sci fi! I have several types of 12" vegetables growing in eight raised beds with PVC pipe arches in them. The arches are draped with Home Depot 1/4"-hole, black bird netting and securely fastened around the bottom of the bed, literally Fort Knox! and something keeps getting in to the beds to consume literally ALL the leaves over night, leaving only bare stalks. It's so frustrating! Could this moma-sized Gray Bird Grasshopper have been the lone culprit? Is she squeezing through squares in the netting at night and heading out during the day? Are there many more hoppers hiding from me? Or is it another bug doing the damage? I don't know....Help!

Red Spider Mites have been the nemesis of my tomato plants for over 20 years and for all those years I controlled them with Kelthane, until now... I have enough Kelthane for one more good spray but this year I opted to try other measures first. When the spider mites showed up at the end of May just as they usually do, I decided to try blasting them off with a spray from the garden hose. I'll admit that I was sceptical of the water blast treatment and my first attempt was rather wimpy as I was afraid of damaging my plants with too much force. I did notice some improvement though, but within a week or so they were making a strong comeback. I was this close to using the Kelthane or even concocting a homemade solution with Canola Oil and Dawn detergent with Zylene(an ingredient of Kelthane). I decided to try the water blast again. This time I blasted with a spray nozzle and used more pressure, blasting all of the underneath from several angles then coming back across the tops from above. This time showed more improvement and with new grow on top staying happy and green. I noticed that for the most part the heirloom plants didn't have near the problem with spider mites as the hybrids with the exception of my Black Cherry plants. Celebrity had the least problem of the hybrids with big problems on the Superfantastic's and Betterboy's. 4th of July's had some problem and they are planted next to the Black Cherry's which had the worst problem of all. I blasted 4 times so far with the last time about a month ago. On the final blast, I opened up the hose full force and blasted with Hurricane force so much so that there was some small damage to the plants from whipping about so violently. I have still had some sign of spider mites, but not infestations that will suck a plant dry and burn it up by the middle of July. I suspect the good mites that Dawn talks about are helping to keep the bad ones in check along with the Marigold plants I planted down one row when the mites first showed up in May. I expected the Marigold's to be a trap crop, but so far they have grown lush with no spider mites at all. Perhaps just the smell they give off is a deterrent to the spider mites. Most of all those years that I used Kelthane, one good drink when the mites showed up would control them all year with sometimes another application in July being necessary. Usually by September they would be showing up but not enough to be concerned with. Every year the old woman across the fence would plant her tomatoes not 30 feet from mine and every year they would be burnt up with mites by the middle of July. Next year I plan on planting the row of Marigold's much thicker at the same time I set out my tomato transplants and not be such a sissy about blasting with full force when the spider mites first show up. While I'm glad that I've found an organic method of treatment, I would still use Kelthane if it was still available. I do recommend the water blast treatment, it has to be started soon after mites show up. If you wait until you have a severe infestation, I doubt the blast treatment will have any effect at all and your plants will soon be deader than Bin Laden.... Keith

and the ironic thing is that is just about any day now, the fall afternoons will be swarming with little ballooning baby spiderlings. And around here it is generally guaranteed that I will walk under a tree limb or something similar where they are just now dispersing and wind up with a head draped with scramblimg babies. At least that doesn't bother me. In fact, I really hate knowing that a few are going to get squashed even if I try to be careful helping them vacate premises. One year a spider stored her egg mass under the handle of my laundry basket, which I kept on a shelf above the washer and dryer. I was sorting things one day and reached in to press the start button and in doing so, leaned right into a solid wall of descending babies. Must have been like, F-Troop goes to rappelling school. And the first time I began to suspect something was up when I kept waving away what I thought was a gnat in front of my face. Only it would swing out and away in a slow graceful arc and then swing back in close, and I realized most gnats don't travel on a string. When I reached out and pinched off the tiny web and carried the spiderling over to a houseplant, I noticed more little gnats on strings appearing at various intervals in my peripheral vision. I realized what had happened, although it took some detective work on my part to track down the source since I had not been out yet that morning. By then my husband was dying laughing...his wife had spiders in her hair. It does conjure up images of aproned housewives dancing on kitchen chairs while a mouse runs around her feet, or a bat diving into a beehive hairdo on some FarSide matron. He doesn't know how lucky he is to have a woman like me.

It actually one of my favorite spiders, mostly because it makes and remakes its big web in the same place, usually in the garden, rather than somewhere that I walk through and end up with the web all over my face. I also would capture a live stink bug in my house and rather than smash it and have it release its stink, I would sometimes toss it into the web of one of these garden spiders. Usually the spider is on it, wrapping it up in webs completely within seconds, as in this second photo. I had never heard the superstition about "If a signature spider wrote your name, doom was imminent for you!" but given that my name has 'B's and 'O's and 'S'es, I think I'm safe considering the spiders seem to be only able to write 'W's, 'V's, 'M's, 'N's, 'A',s, and 'I's The first spider seems to have it in for VIVIAN perhaps, the second one has poor penmanship, and I cannot make out the first name but the last name seems to start with "MAWN" I am much more bothered and perturbed by this type of spider I've found on and around our property several times.For one of them, (perhaps this one) since it was in a location I might be likely to put my hand, I captured it in a jar put the lid on and threw it in the trash. About an hour later my wife came home and remarked "This jar should be put in the recycling bin" and before I could say anything I heard her scream in fright.