I didn't wanna do it

[b54red]

I was forced into doing something I hate doing and haven't had to do in years. I had a sudden and massive outbreak of both spider mites and aphids along with increasing numbers of stinkbugs. Last weekend I noticed them on a few plants but by yesterday afternoon the damage was becoming too much and I have been having to remove fruit damaged by stinkbugs for several weeks now. For some reason this year I have had hardly any predator bugs. I had a huge population of Assassin bugs, lots of lacewings,spiders, and a goodly number of ladybugs last year but this year I have only seen one lacewing and a few ladybugs in late spring and nothing since then. The attack by the aphids and spider mites was not confined to just a few struggling plants like it usually is this early in the season but damage was becoming noticeable on many of my largest and healthiest plants. I could hardly see the new growth on some of my pepper plants for the aphids and the spider mites were causing a lot of leaves to start dying from the damage. I finally gave in after trying several soapy water sprays and high pressure water sprays and used the Permithrin, soapy water and IGR solution on my tomatoes and peppers just before dark yesterday evening.

I tried removing some of the worst damaged leaf stems on some of the more pitiful looking plants but found I was leaving too much fruit just hanging in the open even when only removing the really badly damaged leaves. I realized at the rate the damage was increasing and spreading I would have massive loses of plants soon if I didn't do something very quickly to stem the outbreak and temperatures in the high 90s weren't helping. I have been picking off stinkbugs everyday since two weeks after setting my plants out and only seeing more each day. I had so few pests last year it was like a vacation so I guess I'm paying for the nearly pest free year last year with a double whammy this year. I have never had to resort to spraying everything this early in the summer that I can remember. This is bringing back memories of a few years ago during the drought when I had the last massive spider mite outbreak but that didn't start til late in July or early August. I sure hope I'm not going to have one of those summers when I have to battle pests constantly.

I will be in the garden at daylight rinsing the tops of the plants off with fresh water in hopes of not exposing the new growing bee population to the poison and to get the worst of the soap off the leaves to lessen sun damage. I used a fairly high concentration of soap in order to penetrate the mite webbing so I don't want to leave it on the tops of the leaves too long. I will probably hit the whole mess with a bleach spray to lessen the chance of a massive disease outbreak from all the insect damage and follow up with Daconil in the afternoon as a preventative. So far my disease problems have been very mild with the drier than normal weather the last couple of weeks but I have noticed over the years that large aphid and spider mite outbreaks can be shortly followed by some serious disease problems which I would like to prevent if possible.

Keeping my fingers crossed that this one treatment will be enough at least for a long while but I have a bad feeling about this happening so early and to such healthy plants.

Bill