Organic Control of Flea Beetles, Slugs  & Cutworms For Vegetable Gardens

Flea beetles feasting on eggplant.

After reading that Fern Marshall Bradley* had recommended a hand held vacuum for flea beetle control, I had to chuckle.  But the damage to my eggplants was well over any threshold. 

•  I was ready to try anything before resorting to a spray. Get out the extension cord.

•  By golly, it works! A nice batch of beetles the first try, but many escaped when I opened the vacuum.

Vacuum ready for action.

•  Next time there will be a bucket of soapy water ready to dump them  into before they jump and  take to wing.

• Cutworms and slugs do most of their dirty work at night and find a place to hide during the day.

• I give them shelter with lettuce traps. As I harvest the lettuce, strip off the outer leaves and place them in small piles near vulnerable crops

Cutworm discovered too late.

• The cutworms like the cool hideout, and the slugs eat the tender leaves. They meet their demise daily as I check under and around these little encampments.

*Fern Marshall Bradley is a co-author of Rodale's

 Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening:

 The Indispensable Green Resource for

 Every Gardener and several other books.

Text and photos by Doug Pratt, Rensselaer County Master Gardener

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Previously published in Root Concerns - July, 2013    

Root Concerns is a gardening newsletter produced by the Cornell Cooperative Extensions of Rensselaer, Albany, and Schenectady Counties. Because its contents have not been previously indexed by Internet search engines, relevant articles from past issues will be occasionally reprinted.