Flea beetles

[siandc]

We noticed heavy damage to brassica seedlings over the weekend and having looked around today, and popped back down the plot now know we've got flea beetles.
I've read a few threads where people have been affected and gone on to use garlic/ onion/ mint infusions as sprays but none of them have had success or failure reports.

Did any of them work?

[siandc]

[saddad]

Not tried them myself but keeping the soil damp helps..  :-\

[moonbells]

Now Derris has gone, there's only really one option. However it works better than Derris even if the initial outlay is more - ultrafine enviromesh and its clones.

Get some blue water pipe (Plumb Center sells it by the yard, or Wickes sells it by the bundle) and slice up into sizes which will form a half-circle over your brassica row and leave enough head and sideroom for them to get to full size. Stuff them into the ground, preferably down about 8-10" so you have to allow for that when you're cutting it up!
Tie or duct tape canes along the tops of the hoops, so they stay more rigid. Drape your mesh over them and peg down well. Then you can pretty much forget about them for the season apart from occasional unpeggings for weeding underneath! No flea beetle, no cabbage butterflies, no chemicals!


For larger things like PSbroccoli, get canes and stick into the ground, and plug their tops into a half hoop to get a dome shape. I usually use green mesh for that though. They're hardier and only need pigeon proofing!

moonbells