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Originally Posted by HoustonHeat
I never find time to spray Clorox mix or copper because I do not want to wash away the DE coating. It's been very dry so until it rains I am just leaving the DE mix on plants.
However after 10 dry days I did spray the plants with high pressure water nozzle and then next day I applied a strong Neem oil mixture hoping that would help with any fungus issues while keeping mites at bay. Then 3 days later (yesterday and still no rain) I applied DE spray again. While I have appeared to have defeated the mite and whitefly infestation I need to get a Clorox spray into the schedule. If it rains or by next weekend I will hit them with clorox.
Bill are you getting free TTF? �� You seem to be advertising it, or you believe in it strongly. I have it and have used it a couple times (every 2 weeks) and while it seems a good product I have about the same results with 13-13-13. Noting I have very few tomatoes growing. Also my plants are in raised beds so all of the TTL benefits may be draining away?
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Houston you can use the bleach spray then as soon as it is dry you can go ahead and apply the other mix for mites. You could also do what I am doing and that is add copper fungicide to the mix. It seems to work out okay and such a thorough spraying probably makes the copper application more effective. You are doing the most important thing and that is getting the mites under control. As long as spider mites are on your plants you don't have much choice. Make sure to keep the plants well watered since it is so dry there. The leaves are damaged by the mites and losing moisture faster than normal so they will need a lot of water. The good thing about the dry weather is it helps keep foliage diseases down but it also makes the spider mite problem worse. Kind of a catch-22 situation you are in. Welcome to the club.
I wish I could get free TTF for life. I buy by the case to keep costs down but shipping is a killer. I think they are located somewhere in or around Houston so that would be a real savings for you especially by the case. TTF seems to be a fairly natural product and gives me better results than anything else I have tried and I have tried a lot of natural and organic fertilizers and most of them have been extremely costly and have not given me much in the way of results. If I didn't have TTF and the other products they make I would go back to Miracle Grow which was much better than any of the other products that I tried. As a matter of fact it was Miracle Grow that got me started feeding my plants more regularly and seeing the benefits of that. I just went further with that method once I started using TTF and got even better results. I also love the ease of applying fertilizer with a hose end sprayer. As I have gotten older and my arthritis has gotten worse the easier methods are much more appealing to me. I still have problems getting a new bottle shaken up well enough. I have found it is a good thing to pour half a jug into an empty jug and then shake them up and mix them back together.
I, as you say, advertise everything that I have found that works for me in the garden. I have spent most of my gardening life frustrated beyond belief trying to have decent production from soil that is rife with fusarium and nematodes. While at the same time growing in an area with very heavy pest and disease pressure. I spend way too much on my garden but I would quit growing tomatoes before giving up my diluted bleach spray, grafting, cottonseed meal, TTF, mulching with cypress, or using the lean and lower support method. My latest thing to advertise has been the mix of Permethrin, DE and Dawn because it is the only reasonable solution I have found in forty years of growing tomatoes to control mites. I try to let everyone know the things that work for me because of how frustrated I was for so many years without knowing these things. I hope I am saving someone else some of the wasted time and frustration that I went through.
I am a fan of Tomatoville and I am a fan of the TTF which I learned about on this site because some other members bragged about their results with it. I was doubtful that any fertilizer could produce the results I heard about but I gave it a try and haven't regretted that decision at all. I finally gave in to grafting thanks to fans of it on this site and it has made growing tomatoes pleasurable again. Before I started grafting growing tomatoes in soil full of fusarium wilt and RKN was beyond frustrating and like the stubborn cuss I am, I resisted the advice that was freely given on Tomatoville for far too long. Please don't be like I was. Listen with care and check things out but don't wait too long to do the things that will make gardening more fun for you, more productive and less work in the long run.
Bill