How to Treat Flea Beatles

Plant radish plants or Chinese southern giant mustard seeds among your vegetables as a preventative measure. Leave a gap of 6 to 12 inches between each one. The flea beetle favors the giant mustard and radish, so feasts upon these crops instead. Consequently, your vegetables are preserved from damage.

Determine the severity of your flea beetle infestation before you begin treatment. This means you can use less-dramatic methods to get rid of the insect, if they are less prevalent. Use yellow sticky traps (available from gardening centers) to check whether the flea beetles are present in your allotment or not. You will see them stuck to the tape if they are present.

Treat the ground surrounding your crops with weed control. The flea beetle often lays its larvae on weeds, so removing the weeds prevents this and decreases their numbers.

Trim back older, dead crops with a pair of shears or secateurs. This eliminates overwintering flea beetles' shelter and protective habitat so they simply die off.

Apply an insecticide to the crops. Generally, those containing pyrethroids or carbamates are effective. For organic crops, you may use neem or insecticidal soap, but be aware that the University of Vermont suggests that research has shown these are not very effective. It explains that spinosad has been found to treat flea beetles, but products containing this do not often state that it is effective for this use.

Treat flea beetles by taking a biological approach. Microctonus vittatae is a species of wasp that kills flea beetles. The University of Minnesota says, "the larval wasp sterilizes the female flea beetle while developing in her body," so this method can prove to be a powerful method of control.