The Flea Beetles Have Moved to My Kale

I think I should have just left the arugula in the ground to attract the flea beetles that subsequently moved to my kale. I came home from vacation to this:

Flea beetle damage on my kale

Flea beetle damage on my kale

Now, the little buggers were already taking a few bites here and there before I left, but they seem to have multiplied.


Rather than treat the kale, I just pulled it out of my garden. Given that kale is a cool-weather crop, and we just finished up a heat wave, it was time. I still have a little kale in a small container on my deck that I can eat, untouched by the flea beetle.

As I outlined when I first wrote about this problem with my arugula, you can still eat the damaged leaves. But my kale leaves felt just a little too damaged. Not to mention I could see the actual bugs hanging out on the leaves. And they do spread disease. I don't like that part of it.

So now that the kale is gone from my garden, I need to consider that the flea beetles could move on to my potatoes and the leaves of other plants. I'm considering three moves:

• Garlic spray - basically just garlic steeped in water - for the remaining plants in my garden to discourage them. From what I've read in my research, it's an effective treatment.
• Planting mustard as a trap crop, or a crop designed to draw in the pest so that it doesn't bother what you actually want to eat. Radishes work well for this too, but you can still eat the radish as the flea beetle is just feasting on the leaves.
• Replanting kale in the fall - Apparently flea beetles stop reproducing in the fall. Which is good, because that's a good time to plant kale anyway.

Wish me luck!