Little Black Bugs?

[R.K. Castillo]

One of our systems has been full of a bunch of little black bugs.  

2 Questions

1.  If I spray it with worm tea will this get rid of them?  

2. Can you spray worm tea on food you plan to eat in the future like lettuce?  

[Ben Rodman]

Others more experienced can describe active treatments that are fish-safe (spinosad?) but raising humidity is helpful culturally: as "suckers" they have to give off moisture that they take in with their food and low humidity greatly accelerates their growth.

[R.K. Castillo]

It's outdoors in Hawaii...so I can't really control the humidity.  

[Alex Veidel]

Mint......I should have known that.

R.K. Castillo said:

They're Candy Mint.  Really good...taste like a candy cane.  

What's a good way to deal with Spider Mites?  I sprayed all the plants down with a little bit of dish washing soap yesterday but it doesn't seem to have made much of a difference.  

[Alex Veidel]

Raising humidity is a good preventative measure, but it doesn't really take care of spider mites once you've already got a problem. I've also heard of spraying your plants with high pressure water to take care of them, but there's some controversy on how well that works.

Ben Rodman said:

Others more experienced can describe active treatments that are fish-safe (spinosad?) but raising humidity is helpful culturally: as "suckers" they have to give off moisture that they take in with their food and low humidity greatly accelerates their growth.

[Alex Veidel]

Getting rid of spider mites might not get rid of the damage, but it will stop it from getting worse.

I do recommend spinosad for a quick fix. It's a safe, bacterial based spray that really takes care of those suckers. (I've observed the before and after with a microscope) If you want to play around with integrated pest management, I advocate the use of predatory mites. There are several species that are great for taking care of mite problems. I'm not sure what will be available in Hawaii though...

Personally, I used a mixture of p. Persimilis (which is a ravenous spider mite devourer with a very picky diet. It eats spider mites and spider mites alone, and dies soon after the supply runs out) and n. Californicus (which can go a really long time without food, lives on flower pollen, and is a great preventative). n. Californicus eats p. Persimilis once there are no spider mites to feed on. Green Methods is a distributor that is reliable and reasonably priced.

R.K. Castillo said:

They're Candy Mint.  Really good...taste like a candy cane.  

What's a good way to deal with Spider Mites?  I sprayed all the plants down with a little bit of dish washing soap yesterday but it doesn't seem to have made much of a difference.