Well, it was a good run. All season with no pesticide and they did fine, but now as winter approaches, spider mites have ravished my garden, so back to the earth it goes…

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Millions of spider mites:

 

Completely ravished my eggplants, which once stood tall:

 

Even on my reservoir, spider mites find a home:

 

Dust? No.. SPIDER MITES!

 

Some root porn for the fellas:

 

And the close up:

 

Nice root mass, shame to see it go:

 

All my dreams, in a single garbage can:

 

An empty garden once more:

 

The final harvest:

 

My custom sweet jalapenos. Cross bread with sweet baby bell peppers, they taste like sweet bell peppers but are hotter than anything you can find in the store:

 

 

That cucumber was hiding under a tomato plant, it’s over 2 feet long but is filled with seeds, used here only for scale:

 

 

And that’s all she wrote. I tried to salvage all I could for my last harvest, but the spider mites had taken over. Next year, I still won’t use pesticides, but I am going to buy a lot of predatory mites to eat them. I didn’t notice them and after neglecting my garden for 2 weeks, they took over. It lasted about a month before they killed everything and forced me to remove the plants, but it was a good run for a first try, I harvested at least as much as is shown in these pictures each week. I couldn’t give them away fast enough, i have pasta sauces, hot sauces, pepper crab cakes etc, so it was all worth it.