Thrips AND mites on eggplants

This is the first year I've ever tried growing eggplant, and it may be the last; I've never had so many problems with a plant! Now I find that the spider mites I finally got rid of from the roses seem to have migrated over to the larger of my two eggplants, and the smaller eggplant has little white buggies that look like the photos I've seen of thrips.

I would sooner throw both plants out than use chemicals. Short of that, how do I get rid of these beasties?

Can't speak for the thrips, but I've had luck getting rid of spider mites with the garden hose. You have to keep after them and you'll damage some of your leaves in the process, but you may be able to get rid of them without chemicals. You need to hose off the undersides of the leaves with a strong jet from the hose, if the plants are in a pot I tip it on its side and hit the leaves that way, but if they're in the garden you'll have an easier time if you buy yourself a little gadget call the Bug Blaster that attaches to your garden hose and lets you direct spray to the underside of the leaves. The trick is to really thoroughly blast the undersides of all your leaves. I repeat every couple days for about a week and that will frequently take care of them. But if it's a plant with easily shredded leaves, I usually do a little weaker blast from the hose and then spray the undersides of the leaves with insecticidal soap. Insecticidal soap is considered organic and can be used on food crops (although I'd make sure and wash them before you eat them!) so if you have to use chemicals it's not an especially harmful one.

Ferti-lome "Triple Plus" is a neem oil soap product that killed or chased off the flea beetles from my eggplant. It is supposed to work on mites, too. It worked fast, and is labeled for use the day of harvest.

Thanks, both; I'll use the soap if I have to, and I'll keep an eye out for the one you recommend, Jeff. First I will try just hosing the plants every day -- that is what got rid of the mites from my miniature roses. Although it seems to have washed them over to the eggplant! At least the only thing beyond the eggplant is the barren ground on the other side of the fence. :)

What about the thrips? I tried squashing them manually, but those little suckers jump just like a tiny little grasshopper, a huge distance for their size. I've read there's a good-bug bacteria, BT, that works to control thrips. Has anybody here tried it? Is it worth the cost?

Bt typically just works on caterpillars and things along those lines so I wouldn't imagine it would work on thrips, but I could be wrong. If you are actually seeing them hop around though, I wonder if they're not whiteflies or something instead? Thrips are really teeny tiny and you usually know you have them by the plant symptoms, not by actually seeing them. Here's a page that lists organic/natural controls for a number of different insects: http://www.ghorganics.com/page9.html

Thank you, Ecrane: now that I've seen a picture of whiteflies, I think that's what they are. The link you gave me gives a lot of good ideas for control.

I have seen green lacewings in my garden. Maybe I need to import some reinforcements.

Anitra,

I agree with Ecrane that the thrips are very difficult to see. I had an outbreak last year and had them identified at our univeristy. I caught them with yellow sticky traps. They were very small and were skinny oblong shaped. It was suggested that I use Monterrey Inspect Spray. It is derived from Spinosad and is OMRI listed. It did an excellent job and I have not had a problem since. The spider mites have caused me all sorts of trouble this year. I just yanked all my pole beans because i could not keep up with them and i have about 170 tomato plants that i was worried about. I tried neem and spraying with water and nothing seemed to help. I may not have been as diligent as i should have been, but it was frustrating trying to thoroughly spray the leaves every other day.

There are a few tricks that can help with the spider mites, maybe one of these would help you. First one is you have to spray the undersides of the leaves thoroughly--with plants in pots this is easy because you can tip them over, but in the garden it's a lot harder. But if you don't get good coverage on the undersides of the leaves, you won't get rid of them, spraying the tops of the leaves doesn't help. Also, you need to treat any plants that were close to the infected plant(s)...spider mites spread very easily so chances are the plants next door to the infected plants already have spider mites too and you just didn't notice them yet. If you don't treat the plants near the infected ones, you'll just find yourself chasing spider mites around all summer as they go from one plant to another.

Ecrane, do you know if Neem oil will hurt tomato blossoms? I was going to spray the adjacent tomatoes with it, but thought i had heard that it can hurt the blossoms. I thought originally that it was to avoid hurting any beneficials that may be buzzing around the blossoms.

Those darn spider mites, i hate them. I tried getting the underside of the leaves, but it was so crowded that it was almost impossible. When i was first building my greenhouse people always told me that i would spiral into greenhouse pest hell. Never did anyone mention mites, but told me about all the others. The others i can handle (so far), but those dang mites are another thing.

I've never heard that neem would damage blossoms, but it will damage the bees that you're probably hoping will come along and pollinate your blossoms, so I'd avoid it if possible.

For getting the underside of the leaves, they do sell some special sorts of bottles that can help with that--I just saw one recently in a catalog but can't remember which one (maybe Charley's Greenhouse or Gardeners' Supply, those are two that I get regularly)

Neem, when dry, will not harm bees. If you spray in the evening before dark but after they have quit buzzing around the blossoms, there shouldn't be a problem. Google "bees neem" and check out the information.