First I've heard of using a flour, milk, and water mixture to control mites. You mix 1/4 (some say 1/2) cup of flour with 1/4 (or 1/2) cup of milk and 1 gallon of water and spray the affected plant. This supposedly makes a paste that traps the wee buggers and they sufficate. Flour paste, in my experience, has always been fairly watere soluble so if a rain does not wash if off the leaves it may just be that too little rain reached that spot. I'd not want that white paste on the leaves very long since it can interfere with the leaves ability to photosynthesize, manufacture nutrients to feed the plkant.

Hi kimmsr, you were right, I just needed to blast them--I didn't think that rain would have left anything dry. It seemed to work on the mites, but it's only been a week. I'll have to keep an eye on them to make sure they don't come back.

I actually used it twice, sprayed on the first day, then it rained the next day so I sprayed it on again the third day without rinsing off the first batch. I wanted to buy some light horticultural or neem oil but it's hard to find organic pesticides here so I had to go with something homemade.

Water is usually the recommended control for spider mites. They dislike moist, humid conditions so often just spraying or misting the affected plant on a daily basis is sufficient. It may very well be that the mites were discouraged as much by the rainfall as they were from your concoction!

Mite populations tend to proliferate when conditions are warm and dry. Altering those conditions to make it less habitable to the mites - and that involves water - is typically all it takes to keep them under control.

FWIW, summer-weight oil or refined horticultural oil should be available pretty much anywhere. It has long been used as a common garden pesticide, organic focus or not.

That's what I thought re: the oil, but I went to the few places in my small town that sell gardening supplies and couldn't find any. They did have a few organic fertilizers, but all the pesticides were chemicals. I live close to Tulsa and I'm sure I could find some there, I just didn't want to go questing that day.

I'm sure the rain helped, too. I am going to be spraying the leaves more with water to keep them away. I had been avoiding that for fear of fungal diseases. We've had a lot of dry weather interspersed with wet weather, really crazy this year.

Make your own spider miticide with water and soap...or just water...1-20 cents...works cheaper and as effective than Middleton's $8 spamicide.

Ditto G-gal, used to use a garden hos to control them very effectively in a greenhouse I worked in years ago.