"Pat Kiewicz" wrote in message
...
Marie Dodge said:

I believe the spidermites came in on a gift palm I recieved last winter.
It
was incurable so I trashed it this spring. Most likely not before a few
mites fell of it.......... The whitefly probably came in on one
of
the seedlings I bought last spring.

There's an old remedy for spider mites that might be worth a try, and
might not be too expensive. It combines wheat flour, buttermilk,
and water. The Organic Method Primer recommends it, and various
proportions are mentioned. Here's a recipe from a website:

1/8 cup buttermilk
1 cup wheat flour
1-1/4 gallons of water

http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/gt_org...693956,00.html

Have you found any of these concoctions to work for you? So far the only
thing I've seen make any difference this past week is called Organocide. I
got it at Lowe's. It's made with fish oil and smells like Cod Liver Oil. We
went to the Extension Office today with samples from our garden. The agent
didn't find signs of anything but whitefly and 2-spot spider mites. He said
they were the worst infested leaves he ever saw. We have to stop making our
own compost because there is no real way to kill them off in compost. I
could spread the problem all over the property with compost from the
gardens. He told us of a place we can get all the free stuff to compost we
can haul away. We're going to burn the entire pile we now have and get the
shredded stuff he told us about.



--
Pat in Plymouth MI ('someplace.net' is comcast)

After enlightenment, the laundry.