Spider Mites and Garlic

[Eeko]

You should mention that you are reviving a 5+ year old thread. I realize it still is interesting and important information but it also bumps down threads of people who are in dire need of help. Anyways good find regardless.

"Dire need of help" can you provide an example of that please? Is that like they locked their grow room and the key broke off in the lock and all their plants are going to die, or their spouse just found their grow and is having a heart attack and they came to this forum for CPR lessons, or is dire need an emergency lesson on converting teaspoons into ML?

 

[Weaselcracker]

I ordered 500 ladybugs once. My local nursery got them in for me. The seed catalog I use also advertises them. Anyways- the bugs basically all disappeared in short order. It was amazing. Some flew into the lights and died- but most just vanished. I ordered a 1000 more and those disappeared as well. In the end I used a product called Mite-rid, which finally put an end to the two year mite war.

 

[BeccaBuds]

Just released 100-300 lady bugs an hour ago and they are working like someone feed them speeeeed! Other than them getting all over me (up my pants and down my shirt) they are workers! Reading the info that came with them leads me to believe that I can release the 1500 over several days in case they fly away or whatever. Heck, even if I have to spend $25 once a week for the next 3 weeks to protect my harvest it's much cheaper than risking a loss.

Time to dig out my macro lens and snap some images if they will stand still for a fraction of a second!

If you build a 3' x 3' x 3' or 4' x 4' x 4' window screen enclosure placed near your plants and release the ladybugs into the enclosure overnight before releasing them to your garden, they will tend to stay in the local area rather than just flying away. Let your neighbors get their own ladybugs!
BTW, garlic tea repels fleas very well.