Thursday, January 14, 2010

Little Beasties

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...well that's not actually funny, because on Monday a Great White took out a holiday maker at our favourite beach...so maybe it is better to say, just when you thought it was all going well in our garden....



Overnight these little beasties appeared on my tomato plants. Red Spider Mite!



And after the 34 deg C yesterday my top tomatoes have sunburn.



The tomatoes that are in the shade of the plant's leaves are doing well, larger than my palm and without blemish.

So what's the solution for red spider mite...they tell me to make a garlic spray. Basic instructions are to soak 5 cloves of garlic in boiling water and when cooled add a dob of dishwashing liquid (thats the fixitive for the spray) and spray the leaves in the evening. I also went and cut off the leaves that were infected.



Hope it works!

4 comments:

Linnie said...

Thank you Wendy, I noticed the same on my beautiful tomato plants yesterday. I will definitely try the garlic spray.
Have a blessed day!

Jill said...

Good luck! I will try to remember this should the same problem hit my tomatoes when we have our next garden in our summer!

Unknown said...

I am definately not an expert but depending on the variety of spider mite you have you could try and increase the canopy humidity in the early morning (well before 8am to avoid leaf and fruit damage from the sun) to slow the infestation, also you will need to feed the plants heavily to bring the depleted nutrients back (not to much nitrogen though). When increasing the humidity it is important to keep an eye out for mildew ... chortle yes there is no way of avoiding it especially at this time of the year.

Urban Homestead South Africa said...

Thanks for those ideas Tanya I will give them a good feed.