They Are Back!

[b54red]

It was so wonderful not having to deal with spider mites last year but they have come back and quite strong. I knew it was bound to happen with the extremely dry weather we have had and I guess I should be thankful it took them this long to create havoc in my tomatoes. I sprayed them day before yesterday but a lot of damage had already been done and it has become more obvious since then. I started pruning the more severely damaged leaves and limbs and once I got started the extent of their spread was far worse than I thought. Some of my plants are now looking rather defoliated and they may get worse before or if they get better. I am sure to have a lot of sun scalded fruit due to leaf removal but from past experience I have found it better to have some sun damage than to leave too many leaves with all the eggs they lay. Despite the poison and DE it is impossible to get them all so removing the leaves they have been sucking on cuts down on the need for too many further treatments. It also makes it much easier to apply a second or third treatment and get much better results due to more thorough coverage of the remaining leaves and stems.

Since I was treating to tomatoes I thought it would be a good idea to treat my cucumbers which may or may not have nematodes. It was amazing how much less wilting I got on the cucumbers after spraying them and I needed to treat again for pickle worms and melon worms so I got two birds with one stone. It looks like it will extend the life of my cucumbers a bit and I hope it will help those older tomato plants that wre infested with spider mites.

Bill