Mighty Mites

After a number of months of complete inaction, I finally decided to try and figure out what was infesting some of my plants in the living room.

Based on the characteristics of the pests (small and web-casting) and their impacts (leaf discolouration and disfiguring) I was relatively quickly able to determine that I was dealing with spider mites. In some ways this was good news, as I now know what I have to face, and I now know that there are some pesticides that can take care of them.

The bad news is that these are apparently a rather hard pest to eliminate, particularly once they have spread to a number of plants, which seems to be my situation. Some sources seemed to indicate that you might as well just toss the plants and start again (which is drastic, but a move I might need to consider).

The other bad news is that it is likely not a coincidence that they are doing well on my watermelons and beans. I found at least two sources that discussed spider mites on these plants. Given the universe of plants and the universe of pests I don't take this to be a good sign.

The only nice thing is that they don't seem to be particularly interested in my chives or Zebra Aloe, nor, for that matter, the African violets.

Shortly after learning a little about spider mites and their pesky ways I decided to make my way to our local plant store to buy some pesticide and plant food. Interestingly, the store has moved across the street within the past day or so, so I may have been one of their first customers at the new location. Unfortunately I wasn't much of a customer as they didn't have plant food or pesticide.

As I was making my way home I stopped at the grocery store. Though I didn't expected to find much, I thought that I might as well check the store's floral/plant section. It turns out that they had one pesticide, a pesticide soap spray, which claimed a spider mite killing ability. Since I wasn't interested in traipsing all across town for other option I bought the bottle and have already applied my first dose. Obviously it is a little early to tell whether or not this spray is having the desired effect, but I am certainly hopeful that it will both kill the mites and allow the plants to regain their vitality.

Edit: Apparently predatory mites are a pesticide-free spider mite control option. Given my present circumstances I am not really sure if this is a feasible option.