Comments on: Flea beetles

By: Mike (tfb)

Mike (tfb) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 21:55:53 +0000

Wilbur: At least around here, flea beetles LOVE arugula, so if you have FBs and you grow organically, with no spraying, you’ll probably need floating row cover. If you take care to keep the edges of the cover pretty well pinned down, it does the trick with all brassicas. As far as a trap crop, mustard is an inexpensive brassica that FBs really like. They also seem to particularly favor bok choi. I haven’t experimented much with FB trap crops, but I imagine in smaller gardens, they won’t entirely distract FBs away from the crop you’re trying to protect, just lessen the attack.

By: Wilbur

Wilbur — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 19:34:42 +0000

Anyone know what companion plants would keep the flea beetle off arugula? Nothing mentioned in Carrots Love Tomatoes.

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 13 May 2007 13:51:05 +0000

Jenny: Yikes. When you look up these pests, besides their main interests, there’s usually quite a list of other crops they’ve been known to devour. Luckily, my regulars are conservative: the FBs stick to the brassicas and don’t include tomatoes, spinach or whatnot, the Colorado potato beetles stick to potatoes (and don’t hop over to eggplant or tomatoes), the cucumber beetles stick to the cucurbits (and ignore the peas, beans, etc). Yours seem to be more adventurous… Oooh. Doesn’t bear thinking about too much! :)

By: Jenny

Jenny — Fri, 11 May 2007 21:18:46 +0000

Funny, I walked into my garden just today to find this same kind of damage on my eggplants and tomatoes. Since I read your post earlier today I was able to look up FBs and confirm that that’s what I’ve got. Thanks for identifying them for me, at least!