Patio Gardening 2010: Week 20 – Red Spider Mites Take Over
The garden is not doing so hot. Those red spider mites I discovered last week are taking over. They’re affecting all the tomato plants and some of the peppers, and I’ve seen their webs on the squash/zucchini plants, and what’s left on the bean plants.
Some of our tomato plants look absolutely sickly and we’re unsure at this point if they’ll survive.
As far as treating the problem, we really haven’t been that diligent. I’ve tried to keep the plants well watered and spray the plants with water to keep them wet and discourage the mites, but it’s been very hot lately and I’ve had distractions, so this treatment has not been very effective.
We intend to buy some neem oil to fight these little buggers, but haven’t had the time to get it. Hopefully this week… It’s a shame how life gets in the way.
Despite the red spider mites, our tomato plants continue to produce (though obviously less) and the baby peppers are getting bigger.
Our basil is unaffected and unfazed by everything and continues to grow big and beautiful.
Everything else in the garden is sort of at a sickly stand still. It really is a pathetic sight, which I can’t seem to effectively capture with my camera.
No video this week so far. There may be one, there may not. If there is I will post it separately, otherwise we’ll get one up next week.
For those who are new, this year the boyfriend and I are doing a little container gardening experiment where we are trying to grow various herbs and vegetables on our patio. We live in the city of Chicago, so traditional gardening is out of the question. You can subscribe to the RSS feed to instantly receive the posts each week and also check out our previous posts. Feel free to subscribe to our Youtube channel as well.