Still fighting the spider mites. It appears that the focal point was my ginger plant. Huge pot, 2 years old, and the fronds had started looking poorly late last summer. I gave them a dusting of permethrin in the soil since there were some spring tails living in the soil, then ignored the plant. My bad. So, I have 2 pepper and 2 egg plants that have been practically denuded of leaves. Keeping a close watch on all other plants in the vicinity. Have given them a good bath with dish soap, and most recently some weak Castile. According to my reading, newly hatched mites start reproducing at 3 - 5 days, so will continue treating every 3 days. Still seeing some live mites. Nasty things. Though I must say: I'm impressed with their resilience!
With fear and trepidation, I did 3 more hydroponic containers today. At this point, I'm just playing around with the stuff, seeing how easy it is to fail. I have 3 qt sized containers that were planted several weeks ago. Today, I added a 1 qt ceramic flower pot, a plastic shoe box, and a Folgers can to my motley collection. Also started some lettuce and Swiss chard in some peat. When they germinate, and get some root growth, the plan is to put them into the HP system. Took a couple more cuttings from Basil and Pineapple Sage, and put those directly into the HP solution. I've not yet had success propagating either of those plants from cuttings. They may get going, then they rot.
I'm hopeful that the mites do not move into my HP collection. Still have a few fungus gnats, so will drop some bits of Mosquito dunks in my water (when watering potted plants) as well as the HP solution.
Enjoyed my first harvest of sprouts in a sandwich today. Takes 3 - 5 days to grow a batch, so started some more today. So nice to have any kind of home grown green stuff, no matter how paltry. Delighted to enjoy some Basil leaves, along with the sprouts.
And a lot more that I think were exposed and also have quarantined. I'm hoping to eradicate these pests. Soon too! So I can sell baby plants in spring!
