Flea Beetle

[Gillian]

Hi, I have a flea beetle problem. They have invade my turnip, radish and rocket seedlings and concequently the leaves have tiny holes in them. I can see the beetles jumping around so it's definitely Flea Beetle.
Does anyone have any ideas on how I can get rid of them organically? I read in my book that it's best to put cloches over the plants - however this is not practical for me as the three crop mentioned are in very small beds in 6 different places!
Anyone have any other ideas?
Thanks in advance

[Gillian]

[Svea]

the cloches wont do any good anyways if the beetles are already there.
other than keeping the plants watered ( i guess the beetles dont like it wet) and brushing them to disturb the insects, i don't know. hopefully someone will come up with the answer :)

svea

[Mrs Ava]

Smear some petroleum jelly onto a card and brush it over the affected plants.  As the flea beetles jump, they will get stuck, you can bin the card and hey presto, flea beetle numbers reduced....for a while!  Not a permanent solution, but the only totally chemical free/garden friendly way I know if fleece is out of the question.

[tim]

Scattered beds shouldn't present a problem? Fleece cuts easily.

Maybe it wouldn't suit your decor?

[derbex]

I've reluctantly dusted my Rhubarb with Derris -an organically approved chemical -cheap at Wilkos. Pretty much a last ditch effort to save the plant. I was reading somewhere that you could try spraying with something like mint or mint & garlic 'tea' as this might confuse them -bit like onions, carrots & carrotfly.

Jeremy

[Gillian]

Thanks for all your help.
I'll give some of those a try - firstly the sticky card I think. Thanks

[Robert_Brenchley]

What's up with the rhubarb? It's quite unusual to have that dying of some insect pest!

[derbex]

Well, it may be many things :)

I planted it earlier this year and it started off well, after a while I noticed that things had slowed down and the newer growth was looking sickly -much of this is now dead and gone.

Next I noticed that some of the bigger leaves had started to get small holes in them -they were pretty evenly spread al over the leaf-it didn't look like slug damage and there were no slime trails. Some of these are now dead and the 2 remaining aren't looking too well. I dusted with derris and surrounded the crown with gravel last week in the hope that this will kill off/deter whatever is doing the munching.

The soil is pretty heavy, although I did dig a decent planting hole and mixed in plenty of rotted manure -with more as a mulch.

I'll try to add a picture later.

Thanks,

Jeremy

[Mothy]

Snap, I started a rhubarb crown off in the green house and it was doing really well. Now it looks quite poorly with lots of small holes over very limp looking leaves. Any advice appreciated!

[Lady of the Land]

Have a close look at where stalks go into crown of rhubarb. I had same problem and could not see anything causing the problem, however on closer inspection found some very small slugs were causing the problem. My son also found a caterpillar as well on the underside of the leaf. All the leaves had numerous holes in.

[selwyn-smith]

do flea bettles just attack the leaves? I have something burrowing into my radishes, I think my swedes and radish may have flea beetle as they have tiny holes in the leaves, do they do any harm apart from the leaves?

[Svea]

the something burrowing into my radishes (well, the surface of the radish, anyways) are baby slugs

[derbex]

You could be right LoL? I have surrounded the rhubarb with a gravel mulch and now new shoots are coming up -could even be a combination of the 2?

Jeremy

[Merry Tiller]

Yes I think you'll find that it's slugs eating the radishes, I just cut the bad bit away. Flea beatles & slugs, it's amazing we get any radishes at all ???

[selwyn-smith]

It's not slugs eating my radishes, the something is tiny and black, it actually burrows into the radish, as you don't notice it until you cut it or bite (yuk) it in half. YOu can see where it has left a small burrow behind it.

[Aussie Chick]

I've got that too, thought it was flee beetle?

[Mrs Ava]

Radish fly maybe?  My ancient book says:

This fly is similar to the Onion Fly.  Its larvae attack roots of various crops, including radishes and others. They are footless yellowish-white grubs pointed in front and greatly resemble the onion maggot.