Egg Plants and Flea Beetles

[jammar9082]

The flea beetles are taking their toll on my egg plants. The first plants were lost to the beetles and now the replacement plants have been damaged even before the the first true leaves have appeared. Are the egg plants more attractive to the flea beetles or is this just a bad year of a heavy infestation? What is the prevention methods used by others?

[walleye]

Flea beatles seem to be attracted to eggplants way more than any other vegetable!

My best way is to use "Tanglefoot" (or some other sticky stuff) on yellow pieces of cardboard or styrofoam. Commercial yellow sticky traps work too. Flea beatles are attracted to yellow and you can keep the numbers under control this way.

If you are bored, you can try picking them by hand. One beatle can do a lot of damage, but you will go nuts trying to catch it!

Floating row covers over the plants will protect them also. Once the plants get to be melon-sized, the flea beatle damage won't affect them any more and the covers can be removed.

Bluebird (or other bug-eating birds) houses near my garden have proven effective at reducing most kinds of insects in my garden. They are some truly ferocious hunters!

[Clyde Kennedy]

Grow your seedling under lights, when transplanted to the garden cover with floating row cover immediately. I leave them ocvered until the plants are blooming. I then remove the floating cover. By this time the plants are large enough that the flea beetles do not seem to affets the plants any longer.

[Dianne Norman]

I use ashes sprinkled lightly over mustard and eggplant plants. The ashes are made by slow burning of pieces of oak or hardwood and cooled. One application has always worked for me.

[Jodi]

Sounds great for flee beetle remedy.
But I usually have trouble with blister beetles. Have any suggestions for controlling them?

[abalama]

My method of controlling flea beatle is to spray the plant with a spray I make which contains 2 cloves of garlic, 2 dried hot peppers, and 1/4 t of dish soap. This year however, the pest problems in our area are much worse than normal (perhaps because we had a long wet spring). I've resorted to Bt (Baccillus thuregensis) powder, which seems to be working for now. Good luck!