A dark day in Halifax

After a little reflection and further examination I came to the conclusion that the spider mite infestation merited rather drastic action, meaning I needed to do more that than simply spray the offending critters with some soap spray. Based on the resources I have available to me, and my desire to have mite-free plants in the near future, I decided to solve the problem by removing the infested plants.

Just moments before the plants were chopped down and emptied out, this is what the living room looked like.



It should be possible to see that some of the leaves are not doing particularly well.



In case the previous two pictures didn't give you a sense of the damage caused by the spider mites, this might be a little more illustrative of the problem.



The spider mites have also been on my pepper plants for some period of time. What may be most impressive is that though under siege for almost 6 months, these plants managed to survive, and continue to grow. I am now starting to think that this infestation may explain why none of the pepper plants ever managed to produce peppers, they had to devote their energies to fighting off the spider mite attack.



As you can see, the living room plant collection has been cut back significantly. The only plants on the wire stand that survived the carnage are the zebra aloe, the chives, the dill, the beets, and two african violets. Depending on how things go in the next few days even these plants may need to be re-assessed. Hopefully today's actions will significantly reduce the impact of the spider mite infestation.



I can't wait to get things going again.