When we first bought our house three years ago, we fell in love with the previous owner's front yard flower bed that was full of marigolds. So naturally, every Spring we would plant marigold seeds in hopes of recreating the same lush flowerbed that the previous owner had maintained.
This worked out well, until mid-summer arrived with its hot and dry weather. We started noticing that some of our marigold flowers were completely covered in thickly spun spider webs, a problem that was rapidly spreading. After doing some research, we found out that the problem we had was spider mites.
Our first thought was to spray a spider mite-specific pesticide on our flowerbed to rid of the problem, but we realized that this could potentially harm any butterflies that we were hoping to attract, so we immediately scratched that idea. A friend of ours suggested spraying soapy water on the plants (concentrating on the underside of the foliage where the spider mites hide) and this worked out okay...but not great.
Then I received an issue of Backyard Living (I could do a post on this magazine alone, it's that good!) and in their reader tips section, someone posted the following recipe for repelling aphids -and more importantly, spider mites- and so far, it has really worked wonders for us:
Mix 1/3 cup cooking oil and 1 teaspoon baking soda in a jar; keep covered until needed. Combine 2 teaspoons of mixture with 1 cup of water in a sprayer. Test on a few leaves before spraying the whole plant.
I'd love to hear any non-chemical suggestions you might have for battling the war against spider mites or any other garden pests. Feel free to leave me comments on this post!
This worked out well, until mid-summer arrived with its hot and dry weather. We started noticing that some of our marigold flowers were completely covered in thickly spun spider webs, a problem that was rapidly spreading. After doing some research, we found out that the problem we had was spider mites.
Our first thought was to spray a spider mite-specific pesticide on our flowerbed to rid of the problem, but we realized that this could potentially harm any butterflies that we were hoping to attract, so we immediately scratched that idea. A friend of ours suggested spraying soapy water on the plants (concentrating on the underside of the foliage where the spider mites hide) and this worked out okay...but not great.
Then I received an issue of Backyard Living (I could do a post on this magazine alone, it's that good!) and in their reader tips section, someone posted the following recipe for repelling aphids -and more importantly, spider mites- and so far, it has really worked wonders for us:
Mix 1/3 cup cooking oil and 1 teaspoon baking soda in a jar; keep covered until needed. Combine 2 teaspoons of mixture with 1 cup of water in a sprayer. Test on a few leaves before spraying the whole plant.
I'd love to hear any non-chemical suggestions you might have for battling the war against spider mites or any other garden pests. Feel free to leave me comments on this post!
.JPG)
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