Recipe - Aphid Poison

1 cup Rubbing alcohol
3 cup Water
1/8 cup Dawn dishwashing detergent

NOPE! This isn't a recipe.....but I sure wanted to keep this! Glen Date:
Thu, 14 Mar 1996 16:47:11 0800

From: Brent Thompson brent@hplbct.hpl.hp.com

Are spiders harmful to plants?

No, they are beneficial, since they eat pests which attack/damage plants.
Except when they are babies, which can confound the picture for maybe a day
or two, spiders mostly are larger than, say, 1/8" across (fingertotoe),
and don't travel in herds. I recently moved to a new apt, and my plants
are now the home to many small spiders. From what I've read, these don't
seem to be spider mites, but I'm not certain. Spraying with soap cured
the problem for about an hour. Any advice?

Many mites, on the other hand, e.g. spider mites, are in the set of damage
causers. Different types of spider mites vary of course, but most are 1mm
or smaller across (fingertotoe), and once established tend to exist in
great population densities, like hundreds per leaf.

There are biological controls for spider mites, including various predatory
mites.

Mark Andersen mnanders@ingr.com wrote on 13Jan96 that aphids and fungus
gnats are controlled by spraying with a mixture of: 1 C. rubbing alcohol 3
C. water 1/8 C. Dawn dishwashing detergent

so maybe this will work for spider mites, too. I'll probably try it this
year last summer spider mites ate up all my eggplant plants. The life
cycle of spider mites is such that mite control spray programs usually
specify spraying at least three times, a week apart.

~ Brent

CHILEHEADS DIGEST V2 #268

From the ChileHeads recipe list. Downloaded from Glen's MM Recipe
Archive, http://www.erols.com/hosey.