One must weigh between economy and false economy. I love to save money, but try to never break the penny wise and pound foolish rule.
Best example is tools. I needed a basic pipe wrench once, and may never need or rarely need it again. Off to Harbor Freight! On the other hand if I am going to be constantly using, or it will make a financial loss without it, I cry once and buy the best. Glad the soap water is working out. Spider mites can work a mess if they get ahead of you. they usually will and those webs all over everything...and they can come fast. If they do, 25 bucks or so for a small bottle of Pyganic isnt much crying...party on.
Bubba
Right now, with the plants getting so close to harvest, I’ve started using the soap & oil. I finally found my Neem oil, and will use it next, I think…. I don’t have them bad enough to have webs since I’ve been working on them.
I’ve had one Heck of a time with hose-end sprayers, though, and that’s really hurt my spray schedules for fertilizers, bug sprays, and especially leaf septoria, which has totally taken over. I’ve had it for years and taken the affected leaves off the site and dropped them far away, but it gets worse every year. If I were to take EVERY affected leaf with Septoria, I wouldn’t have
any fan leaves left…..it’s awful. After this crop, I’m going to totally rake the area, then spray it. I’ll probably spray it again before I plant next year. Maybe it’ll help. I’ve searched on several forums and can’t find a lot about it. Most of them are preventatives and it seems the threads I’ve run across say it’s not something that happens a lot??? Could have fooled me. I realize this should be another thread, but i just came back from the garden, and it’s pitiful. One plant is totally consumed by it, and most of the fan leaves turned yellow after I sprayed them Friday. I don’ tthink they’re leaf septoria since they don’t have spots…… it was the ONLY plant from the first planting that grew ‘normally’ and grew 7-8 ft tall, like a regular plant. All the rest, since they flowered so early, only grew a maximum of 5’ or so & have small buds all the way up the stems.….rough year. Not a lot of yield.
sorry for the rant. Just came back from a bad look at the garden this morning.