First time ever growing radicchio, but I’m 100% keeping it in my garden from here on out, not for eating (actually was not a fan of the flavor), but because it seems to want to bloom eternally. I swear this one plant has been blooming every morning for months now, and I’ve never seen sweat bees in such numbers, they seem to especially love these blossoms.

Yeah… the thought has crossed my mind, even though tomatoes are my absolute favorite thing to grow. If I knew for sure it’d really reduce the population, I could probably convince myself, but how sad would it be to have a tomatoless year just to have the mites back in full force the next. 😕

Hard to judge, as not one of my next door neighbors is interested in gardening, despite my efforts at offering seeds/seedlings/help.

I haven’t gotten to really connect with any gardening groups in my area, but the handful of folks I have talked to also have problems with spider mites, though not sure if to quite such a severe degree.

That’s a fair point, didn’t consider that my generalists would probably also be happy snacking on my good guys. I released them along with the G. occidentalis back in May when it was much cooler, in the hopes of preempting the spider mite spread.

The N. californicus I released in mid June, and though I didn’t happen to grow any corn in the garden this year, hopefully the volume of spider mites is enough to keep them well fed.

Yep, I’ve tried various soaps and all kinds of oils, tried regularly spraying down the leaves to keep them dust free and the humidity up, tried removing plants at the first sign of infestation, all of it seemingly futile under the literal avalanche of mites I get every summer. If I miss a few days of these preventative measures, my poor tomatoes will have leaves gone from a slight sign of damage to a fully webbed death. And it’s not like my plants are water starved either, I use drip irrigation under thick mulch, so the soil stays moist even on the hottest days.

It’s been really constraining on my growing season. I’m often able to get plants in the ground around mid-February and get a good harvest in May, but June/July is spent just watching all my plants die a lingering infested death. I’m in 10a, so I should easily be able to get a second summer crop in, but new seedlings planted at the end of spring seem to fare even worse than their established brethren. Hence why I’ve finally decided to spend the $$$ on predators, really hoping that their population establishes and tames the micro menace.

Yeah, would be nice if I were in a closed environment and could keep them from running away!

I’ve tried neoseiulus californicus and galendromus occidentalis, and also zelus renardii as a generalist predator. I’ve considered stethorus punctillum, might have to give them a shot too.

Don’t know the range of those wasps, but I’m in inland southern California, and I don’t think I’ve ever spotted a worm with them. Kinda glad of that tbh, the whole idea gives me the heebie geebies.

I wish that they were the biggest problem bug for my tomatoes, but that title goes to the godforsaken spider mites. They decimate my plants every summer as soon as the weather turns hot, and I’ve tried so many things to combat them.

This year I’ve applied a couple rounds of predator mites, and in addition to some ruthless pruning of affected plants, I feel like I’m actually holding ground in the battle. Though really hoping that the predator mites will establish a population, as they’re a pricy solution.

I usually put them out on my driveway and it doesn’t take long before a bird spots my tasty snack offering. Someday I’d love to have chickens to give them to instead.

Maybe we need more Christmas songs that are suitable to gloom of Seasonal Effective Disorder.

Yes, 100%. I’d like to see more songs about the dark cold that sucks rather than pretend with “merry and bright.”

Shaken, not purred.

I curate the communities I follow to only be nice, hobby-related things, so when I’ve had enough of the all feed, there’s plenty to see without the horror stories.

It’s so fluffy! Like someone gave life to an errant puff of cotton candy.

I figure the bright coloring is the usual “don’t eat me, I’m poison” signaling?

Well made video, I appreciated the various breakdowns they did in terms of cost per watt, weight, and square footage.

I’m subscribed to both! And I’ve tossed a couple butts your way already ^-

Hah, that sounds like me! I started a few communities in places where I knew I could supply some OC, and so far its been mostly just me posting my stuff, but I’m stoked whenever I get comments!

You know I thought about deleting my account, but with a combination of nostalgia and the hope that some of my comments would still be useful led me to decide to just leave it in stasis.

So far, pretty much everything I’ve posted on Lemmy has been new OC, but I think I’ll start scraping and reposting some of my old reddit posts eventually.

I used to comment a lot more than I would post back on Reddit, but I’ve been putting in an effort to try to build up communities here, both my own and others. So I’ve been scraping all my old pictures to find useful content, and as a result, have more posts than comments.

Oh cool, I’d love to see your photos.

As much as I’m biased towards pretty pictures, posts about life in the desert are also welcome.

I’ve got relatives in Phoenix, and I was alarmed to learn that checking your shoes for scorpions before putting them on is standard procedure for them!