Take 3 or 4 garlic cloves, chop and crush them. Put them in a 1 gallon plastic jug, add water and sit it in the sun for 4 or 5 days. Strain the liquid, saving the water and discarding the garlic particles. Add 6 drops of Dawn or Joy dishwashing liquid to your water and stir well. Add 1/4 cup of garlic water with a gallon of water. Water your citrus tree. After a week, check your soil for the bugs. I don't think you will find anything.

Will the water absorbing crystals absorb the detergent, causing a problem for the plants? Will the detergent alter the consistency of the potting medium?

Sounds more like fungus gnats than mites..Make sure your soil isn't constantly wet..also provide fresh air..Fg's love dry air and wet soil..
Sarah, I saw the soil you're refering to..though it probably works great on outdoor plants, I wouldn't use for citrus..Toni

The detergent acts as a wetting agent.... not enough in this recipe to harm plants.

Fungus gnat larvae don't look anything like a mite or a tick. ;-( Don't forget, she looked at her crawlies under a microscope.

I still believe Sarah's plant is suffering w/fungus gnats..especially because of the color..silvery/white.
Sarah, when you water, do these little buggers run around? How notiable are they?
When you look at soil, can you see them hopping/walking around w/o the use of a microscope? Toni

And how about the adult fungus gnats? ;-) Have you been noticing a lot of little flying gnats all over the place? They sort of 'go' with the larvae. Fungus gnat larvae look like little whitish worms, should you see any of them.

If you observe that your critters seem to be very active when you water, even jumping around, they might be spring tails. OR....they could be some kind of mite, lol!!!

Sorry everyone for not posting back sooner. I was supposed to have follow up posts e-mailed to me so I would know if anyone posted back and I never got anything E-mailed to me so I assumed no one was posting

Toni, they were definitely mites. I looked at them under a microscope. Even without the microscope they looked way different than fungus gnat larva. (I wish it would have been fungus gnats instead they are a lot easier to deal with. :) )

What I figured out was that the mites came from the banana plants I ordered online since they had mites the worst.

The mites reproduced so fast that after having the plants for only a month almost all of the soil surface was covered with theses mites. I also found the same mites on some of the leaves on my banana plants and citrus trees. The mites were feeding on the leaves as well but most of them seemed to stay in the soil. It was pretty weird. I have never seen anything like it before.

I did finally get rid of the mites but I had to take drastic measures. What I had to do was buy new pots and rinse all the existing dirt from the roots of my plants and repot them with new dirt. Luckily this didnÂt harm my plants at all. This worked and I havenÂt had a problem with these mites since then.

I have come to the conclusion though that I will not be growing bananas indoors anymore since after I moved the banana plants outside they became infested with hundreds of another type of mite. I donÂt know if the banana plants will make it through the winter outside but there is no way I was bringing them inside. I did not feel like spending all winter battling these little monsters. I think banana plants must be mite magnets. :)

Thanks everyone for all of your help and replying to my post.

Sarah

In the future, a helpful solution might have been to incorporate some food/horticultural grade diatomaceous earth (DE) into the potting medium, and to sprinkle some on top. This product can be purchased anywhere where (so-called) organic pest control items are sold. You can also usually find it 'feed and seed' type business, as it is commonly fed to poultry and livestock.

rhizo,
That is a good idea. If my plants ever get mites in the soil again (which I hope is never!! :) )I will put diatomaceous earth in the potting soil. It sounds a heck of alot easier than what I did to get rid of the little stinkers. :) Thanks for the tip.