Humble Garden

ReSkilling for future food independence

Enter the Flea Beetle

Posted by Nika On June - 7 - 2007

See that little black speck to the right of center? That little guy is eating little holes in some of my tomatoes and also in some of the other seedlings.

I looked on the internet and have found that it is called a Flea Beetle. When you go to pick them off the leaf you have to be careful because they will jump away like a flea. They are very easy to kill tho, very unlike a flea.

Since this is an organic garden, I want to deal with this problem with no chemicals.

The internet says to:

  • Use covers (not an option because these guys likely came with the dirt)
  • Use a trap crop like radishes
  • Use a pesticide
  • Use onion or garlic or pepper spray

Its this last one that I will be trying today. I am going to get some garlic and make a solution of it and then swab it onto my affected plants. I am going to start it off at a relatively (as it seems to me) concentration.

I am also having another issue.

My transplanted pimento peppers (Bonnie from Walmart) are growing some gnarly looking leaves since their transplantation. Is this a fertilizer issue? A too much water issue? A pH issue? If you know, drop me a note!

Ed is working on the fifth bed today, 6th soon and then a large 8×8 herb garden.

We got some Mary Washington asparagus (with a bonus extra pack), 40 in all. Now we are deciding where we will put these guys. As you may know, eating these wont happen until like 3 years from now. They take up a lot of space vertically so they do not want to be IN the garden…

I am still working on the 4th garden in terms of seed placement, almost there. I am also working on seeding in the companion crops to help deal with bugs and get some synergistic benefits.

This guy is growing like a weed but we are not going to weed him.

3 Responses to “Enter the Flea Beetle”

  1. entangled says:

    I can’t say for sure, but your pepper leaves may have had some aphid damage when they were small. I’ve seen this before and always attributed it to that because I almsot always get aphids on pepper seedlings. And I just noticed this last weekend that some of mine have the same issue. I’m not planning to do anything about it – I think they’ll grow out of it.

    Cute baby!

  2. entangled says:

    Sheesh, can’t type at all today. That was supposed to be “ALMOST always get aphids”.

  3. Nika says:

    Thanks for the info! Someone on flickr suggested the same thing but when I look at the plants, no aphids! I think its going to outgrow it, like you mention. The new leaves look ok right now (will see about later :-)

    Thanks for stopping by!

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About Me

We are a family of 5, including Nika, Ed, Q (14), KD (7), and Baby Oh (4). We garden 1024 square feet of raised beds plus assorted permacultural plantings. We also have 13 LaMancha dairy goats, 40 chickens, and one guard llama.

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