Mentha for flea beetles

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mark Moodie on July 5, 2009 at 4:53am

Thanks Maureen. This is now a brick in the edifice of the materia medica agricultura. This is how it grows.

Permalink Reply by Vaikunthanath das Kaviraj. on July 13, 2009 at 7:32pm

Thanx for the confirmation of my efforts. Means that my hunches work and that what i tried on some types of plant also works on others that i did not try it on.

May i include this as proof in my new book?

kind regards,
Kaviraj.

Permalink Reply by Maureen Shepard, CCH on July 17, 2009 at 6:29pm

Yes, of course. The plants still look good and it's been about 3 weeks since I sprayed the menthe. The lower leaves that were there before I sprayed still have the holes but the new upper leaves show no signs of attack by the flea beetles.

By the way, I had some kind of green caterpillers eating leaves on my tomato plants. I could see their poop on the leaves below the ones they were eating. I sprayed the plants with a solution of Sambucus Nigra as per your suggestion (I didn't have any Bombyx). Now about a week later, I don't see any evidence of more leaves being eaten or of more poop on the leaves.

Thank you for the great work you've done - it's such a help in my garden.

Permalink Reply by Sandy Gunder on July 27, 2009 at 10:46pm

Do flea beetles (could anyone tell me their scientific name please) affect crops or plants in Australia? Thanks,
Sandy

Permalink Reply by irene Pena-Strohlein on July 29, 2009 at 7:02pm

Hi Maureen,

I also tried mentha for flea beetles. I had them on my cabbages and black beets. The leaves were full of holes, looked terrible. I used Mentha piperita because it is the only one I had. It worked very well, the beetles disappeared and have stayed away since then. Thank you Kaviraj! I noticed a difference between both plants. The black beets were free of beetles but didn't show any other significant difference. The cabagges changed, they became "healthy", their colour was more intense and the leaves stronger, like they had received a tonic. It was really noticeable and similar to reactions I have observed in other plants when I have given them silica.
Regards
Irene

Permalink Reply by irene Pena-Strohlein on July 29, 2009 at 7:11pm

Hi Sandy,
Here you can find information about a flea beetle in Australia:
http://www.csiro.au/resources/pfhk.html
regards
Irene

Permalink Reply by Sandy Gunder on July 30, 2009 at 8:01am

Thank you very much for your help Irene.

Kind regards
Sandy