Hello Everyone,

This season I had an absolutely awful time with spider
mites. I’m somewhat experienced with
pepper plants but this one almost beat me.
I’ll be direct and to the point.

• Late last season, I saw some crinkled leaves. I couldn’t figure out if it was a bug or because of the 110 degree heat.
• Everyone once in a while, I would see a little spec that
  almost looked like a tiny drop of water.
• I now know that what I was seeing was an adult spider mite—not
  an egg.
  
  
• I have about 27 plants.
  I overwintered them. During the
  winter, the
  mites continued to spread.
• It’s looking like I might have a 96% success rate with my
  overwintering (1 of 27 dead).
• I put my plants back outside. My plants are no longer growing normal
  leaves. All the leaves are starting to
  look gnarled like this:
• 
• I buy a magnifying glass and finally confirm it is spider
  mites. These mites are roughly 1/32 of
  an inch in size. Without a magnifying glass
  and with my decent eyes, I can only spot the largest adults as a white spec.
• These spider mites prefer new growth. They'll attack a leaf when it's 1 mm in size.
• As usual, I put a systemic on all of my plants. Screw being organic. I also confirm that food-grade systemics DO
  NOT kill spider mites.
• The spider mites are still there. I buy an oil based organic concentrate
  spray. It turns out that one of the ingredients in my spray is fish oil. It makes
  my plants smell like fish ass.
• I follow the directions and spray the hell out of all my plants. Still mites.
  I spray the hell out of my plants again.
  Still mites. I spray the hell out
  of them about two times more.
• The leaves on my plants start dropping off from being sprayed over and over.
• Desperate, I cut the leaves off of every single plant I own. I then spray the hell out of my branches and
  stems.
• I start finding tiny spider webs on my
  plants. I remove the web and new ones
  return. The mites are still there.
• Desperate, I trashed the worthless fish ass organic spray
  and switched to a non-organic sulfur spray.
  In the past, my leaves were mostly able to handle this spray once or twice, but a
  couple varieties burned very quickly with the sulfur. Screw it.
• I spray the hell out of my plants. Suddenly the mites start disappearing. I’m still finding webs. When I do, I spray the hell out of the plant and remove the web.
• The webs are becoming less and less. I'm probably damaging some tiny leaves but I don't care.
• The spider mites are almost gone. For the first time this season I’m starting
  to grow leaves that aren’t gnarled.

I know that spider mites blow in the wind so they may always come back, but at least now they are nearly under control

I hope people learn from this experience. But I’m also interested if anyone has any
additional ideas or ability to contribute.
Clearly my biggest mistake was not identifying the source of the problem
first thing.