Visualize Whirrled Peas: A Perpetual Garden By 013

Hey Regrowth!! Glad to have you stop by, I’m out of fresh buds but plenty of cobs are on the table - help yourself!

When I hung NPS beside the bucket the mites crawling around instantly moved away from the strip, after hanging overnight I did not see any visible mites on the sides of the container.

I‘ve said this before, not based on science but personal experience - any substance whether applied to the soil, the water or the air... can be taken up by the plant. Weed is an accumulator it soaks up scents and flavors from other sources. Place a tub of ona gel near the grow and you will have ona flavored bud, so if it can soak up ona gel then it can soak up the chemical Diclorvis. You are not really washing the pesticide out, hopefully it’s dissipated over time.... but around here most growers agree that bud washing is a great general practice.
 
I have two packages of safer's stick stiks, the larger size of the two has

CAUTION: 'Sticky Strips' are very sticky to insects but the glue is designed not to stick to hands. Avoid contact with plant foliage.

No ingredients are listed or precautions of any sort. Kind wild really.
I know from experience they stick to hands :D
 
Said it before, saying it again - the only perpetual growth around here lately has been pests. I’ve got mites doing the electric slide on edges of containers, no doubt they are bedded in the soil. I can see dozens of tiny white specs trailing up out of the soil mix. In addition to the NPS we’ve tried 2 rounds of oil dormant spray 3 days apart, 2 rounds of safers soap spray 3 days apart.

Gave the first application of sulfur spray today, probably gonna lob a grenade of distilled water, h202, aloe, with a ml or two of essential orange & peppermint oils plus a spoon of cinnamon in a well-mixed soil drench.
 
I have a feeling it's only available in Canada but Doktor Doom Premium 3-in-1 Crop & Plant Rescue Concentrate seems to have worked well for me. I did 3 applications in 9 days with at least 1L sprayed per application (4 plants). Don't hesitate to soak them. Before mixing it's 96% canola oil and 4% mystery. The 4% is unlisted, however it's safe to assume it's soap and insecticide.
20ml makes 1L when mixed with water. Maybe you can improvise and make something similar. My tent has been pest free for about a month or so now. I'm not going to celebrate but it certainly helped. You hear horror stories sometimes where no matter what you do they just keep coming back.
 
Howdy do.
Started from the beginning and ended up here, errm? At the middle?
I've been in the giggles all the way through. Probs the funniest thread I've read yet.
Have you got room for one more?
 
Hey Squiggle!

Please pull up a chair, not much happening right now but you are welcome!!! Ah thanks for that! I’m slowing the plants down with very low light levels and low temperature. Only have 1 cfl going in a 12 X 12 room and dropped the temp to 60F. I’m hoping that by slowing down the temp & photosynthesis and cranking up on pest management I can beat these freaking soil mites.

Ideas??? Drop ’em if you got ’em.... I came here to learn - so any input is always welcome!!!
 
013 said:
Hey Squiggle!

Please pull up a chair, not much happening right now but you are welcome!!! Ah thanks for that! I’m slowing the plants down with very low light levels and low temperature. Only have 1 cfl going in a 12 X 12 room and dropped the temp to 60F. I’m hoping that by slowing down the temp & photosynthesis and cranking up on pest management I can beat these freaking soil mites.

Ideas??? Drop ’em if you got ’em.... I came here to learn - so any input is always welcome!!!
Click to expand...
Flame thrower?
 
013 said:
Ah that’s perfect Miss Tra, glad someone is winning the battle. Yes please link it up, I’m kinda betting we won’t have the same products but hopefully I can look up the ingredients and reverse engineer it
Click to expand...
Here it is.

Bug Boss King Hit

- Spider mite and soft bodied insect controller - Botanical Insecticide Miticide and mould inhibitor - Non-toxic to pollinators - Safe for Indoor and Outdoor use on Fruits, vegetables, ornamental flowers, trees, shrubs, home and garden plants, Aeroponic, Aquaponic and Hydroponic systems. - Also...
www.drgreenthumbs.com.au

And K if you wanted to send me your address I’d be more than happy to send you a bottle as a way of saying thank you for your time, advice and friendship. Xo
 
Wow that’s so cool - thanks everyone, I appreciate the tips more than you know!!!

The plants don’t look great, they are definitely overwatered because I’ve been throwing everything including the kitchen sink at them trying to kill the pests.

TraLa that was such a sweet offer! I did read up again on King Hit and they don’t tell the exact ingredients like what is required in the US. but it’s says botanical oil so I’m willling to bet it’s rosemary and thyme oils.

I’ve studied the ingredients of a few dozen ipm products and my new home brew solution is distilled water, h202, aloe, with a ml or two of essential orange & peppermint oils plus a spoon of cinnamon in a well-mixed soil drench. Forgot to add that eucalyptus oil was included in that mix.

I’ve got 5 lbs of sulfur dust and 25 lb bag of diatomaceous earth on hand too. I do have a condiment squeeze bottle mixed with 1 part sulfur, 1 part diatomaceous earth and 1 part ground cinnamon that I will be dusting the edges where the soil meets the container, they hate that shit. They are tiny white or light colored mites moving around

I’ve also got some Neem oil on hand but read that oils like Neem or mineral oil contained in oil dormant spray are in conflict with the use of sulfur and can by phytotoxic to foliage but for now I’ve got lights on super low with only a single cfl lighting a 12 X 12 space and temp is at 60F to slow insect breeding cycles.

squiggle - I was hoping to save the flame thrower option until later if I can get to harvest!!! I do have the 4 foot flame burner wand that hooks to 20 pound propane tank for burning weeds along a fence line but this thing scorches or melts everything it comes in contact with
 
Dead tired of these fvcking gnats right? I picked up one of those dual led light bug killer lights. Just like those big ones you see hanging out on the porch, except the same size and shape of a regular light bulb you screw in a socket. Flip it on once and the whole thing lights up, flick it off then back on and just the little blueish led light and the bug zapper run.
20210213_085321.jpg

Second switch
20210213_085542.jpg

Third for proof of most extreme death
20210213_085438.jpg

I keep it on outside the grow room because that light..yeah. At 60F I'm still getting them to come almost 20 feet away and around a corner to commit suicide. I've no idea where they come from but I've battled them with spinosad spray sprayed on top of the soil repeating a couple few times over a 10 day period. I try to keep all my drains sealed up or hit them with bleach, especially those in the basement. I turned this thing off a month or more back because I had no signs of them and just a few days running I had that many. Worse than roaches in section 8 apartment complexes amirite?
 
Thanks for the tip SoG, I will be sourcing a few of those bulbs - yeppers on the gnats, condensation drain pans under your fridge, water heater or hvac overflow but they can live anywhere it seems.

Since spring of 2020 I’ve had one critter species after another as summer brought on the great fungus gnat & spider mite orgy of 2020, Then I’m pretty sure root aphids punched the ticket on my clone mom, so that soil got tossed outdoors. The good news is I have not seen a fungus gnat in minute so I will knock on wood there, but the discovery of tiny soil mites really sucked out loud.

I slowed the room down by dropping the temp to the low 60’s for 4 - 5 days, I backed off the lights to just one T5 for a 12 X 12. The bad news is the 2 gallon plastic buckets are still very heavy with water. I hate they got watered too frequently but figured it was prudent to get after the soil mites first, so they got hammered with 2 rounds of oil dormat spray including spraying the top of the soil heavily, then 2 rounds Safers soap with more heavy spray on top of soil. A few days later the leaf undersides and top of the foliage got double spray rinsed with water, aloe and kelp and allowed to dry in between rinse cycles then at last they were coated with sulfur spray to treat the mite problem. These bucket won’t be dry until at least Friday or Saturday at the earliest.

Its pretty intriguing since I really haven’t seen mites on the plant but tiny white ones were crawling on the edges of buckets near the soil line. I dusted the edges with sulfur and around the main stalk.

More good news was finding a cool Captains Jacks product I’ve never seen before - it’s a 1 pound shaker bottle of Spinosad insect dust. Score!!! I snagged the only bottle.... Yeah for Captain Jacks!! I dusted the soil line and edges of containers pretty well but for the future I’m going to put it in a cheapie dollar store ketchup or mustard type condiment squeeze bottle for more economical and extra light dusting ability since the shaker bottle is pretty wasteful in it’s distribution.

been running and gunning a lot lately so the grow room is trashed but will update with pics soon

soil mites.... I’m coming after your lot
 
For a simple "blower" bottle for dusting I took a plastic garlic salt spice bottle with a flip lid. It has holes for shaking, I took a push pin and made holes in the flip lid where the holes weren't in the shaker part. It let's dust blow by, I just squeeze it kinda like a baby powder bottle. I made one where the holes lined up and it shot streams of DE all over the place so lesson learned with the flip top. Funny (but not funny) how we can get a bumper crop of bugs to grow but seeds are doomed right? lol
 
Saturday I top dressed with kelp and noticed one flying insect, pretty sure it was a lone fungus gnat looking to pick up chicks. Last week the tiny white soil mites were dusted with Spinosad powder into what I thought was oblivion.... but then today a slight movement on a plant ID tag which turned out to be spider mites doing some line dancing. The soil was coated in powder from dusting but there were about a dozen mites visible on the tag.

So the tiny white soil mites were actually spider mites living in the gap between the soil and the plastic container. Jeez Louise... these vermin are totally hosing up my garden experience. It wouldn’t be so bad but I’ve recently hit them with 2 treatments of oil dormant spray and 2 doses of Safer soap.

Previously I had lowered the temperature to battle the mites and recently raised the temp since they appeared to be eliminated. I will drop the temps down lower again and get after the pests...
 
Back
Top Bottom