Remember those bean plants that we’ve been growing? And how I wasn’t sure if they’d actually produce anything? It turns out reproduction was the least of our worries.
Indoor Bean Fecundity
Not long after my previous bean post, we noticed that the bean leaves were suffering. It appears that the bean plants attracted what google informed us are are spider mites. I started spraying the leaves regularly with a mixture of soap and water, and that seemed to slow the invaders down. I figured that the beans plants would survive until harvest time, and then we’d pull the plants out.
What Spider Mites Will Do To a Leaf
Unfortunately, the mites spread to the rest of our little indoor garden. They annihilated our thai basil before it really got started, killed the thyme and mowed down the oregano. Our sweet basil and parsley are also affected, but seem to be soldiering on.
Today we picked the beans and turfed out the troublesome bean plants. Unfortunately, the rest of the garden is looking a little thin. While I’m happy that my crazy bean idea actually produced some edibles, I don’t think it was worth the cost in other plant lives. I should probably have responded more aggressively at the first sign of mite trouble. Oh well. The neophyte gardener learns a lesson.
A Snack
The Survivors
Are your plants indoors or outdoors?
No sign of mites, though our garden is indoors. They apparently will do great mischief to dwarf banana plants, too.
The plants are indoors, so I’m not really sure where the mites came from. We did transplant a couple already-grown plants that we got at the farmer’s market, so maybe from there? The downside of having them indoors is that there aren’t any mite predators around.
Are you growing indoor bananas?
The little banana plant should eventually fruit. Growing tomatoes and peppers though.