Sunday, August 12, 2012

Flea Beetles

You may have heard me mention flea beetles before.   They attack my eggplants and radishes.

They like fleshy leaves and they leave tiny holes all over them.    They don't eat much, but it stresses the plant and a whole lot of them not eating much can really add up.

I finally got a pic of the little beasts.   The ones that like my eggplant are black and those are the ones in the pic.   Click on the pics to biggify and get a good look at the flea beetles.

Please note: The ones on my radishes were shiny and bronze colored.  Those are Bronze Lundy flea beetles.

There are two ways to defeat them:

1.  Pick them off and drop them in warm soapy water.  You gotta be quick, but it doesn't take long before you get good at it.

2.  Sprinkle on some diatomaceous earth.  It'll dry the beetles out and eventually kill them.   Be generous with the dusting and dust all around the plants, too.   Re-apply after rain.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...